The D.O.S.E. Framework: Brand as a Survival Signal v5

Abstract

This working paper introduces the D.O.S.E. framework, Dopamine, Oxytocin, Serotonin, Endorphins, as a conceptual model for ethical marketing strategy. The journey is organized as a complete biological loop. A pre-journey catalyst (the consumer’s existing struggle) is followed by a four-stage resolution journey across Seek, Choose, Use, and Fix.

The framework rests on one convergent idea from two fields. In evolutionary biology (Zahavi, 1975) and in economics (Spence, 1973), when an environment is noisy and full of cheap imitations, decision-makers rely on honest signals, cues that are costly and hard to fake. A brand, properly built, is exactly such a signal. In an era of generative AI, where beautiful design and fluent copy cost almost nothing to produce, the meaning of a “costly signal” shifts toward operational risk: real guarantees, real support, and real fulfillment.

The paper makes three further claims, each offered as a hypothesis to be tested rather than a finding. First, marketing that spikes cortisol, whether through deliberate manipulation or through ordinary operational negligence, imposes the same biological cost on the consumer; we call these unintended cases cortisol leaks. Second, ethical marketing produces a measurable Cortisol Arc: a brief, acute rise in stress when a real problem is acknowledged, followed by a decline as the problem is resolved. Third, the damage from repeated cortisol-spiking events is non-linear, accelerating with each event, a prediction we name the Convexity Conjecture.

We present a practitioner heuristic for brand equity, Brand = Σ(D + O + S + E) − (ΣC)² , and a set of numbered Translational Hypotheses that connect boardroom metrics to the emotional states marketing should aim to elicit. We disclose contested science openly, state what evidence would falsify the framework, and invite empirical collaboration.