By Melanie Boylan
All references below:
Successful marketing depends on the ability of an advertiser, to identify the needs, wants and demands of potential customers. One of the ways it’s achieved is through the manipulation of prospective buyers' behaviour and patterns of thinking.
Neuromarketing is a method of studying customers brains on how they respond to advertising or messaging. This is achieved by using scientific monitoring tools that can measure skin responses and even eye tracking. These together with previous historical research can help track the decision making our customers do. (1)
Using the same tools, we can also learn how to persuade our customers into making a decision we want them to do.
Some examples of these in action include Nike who in 2016 used fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) to scan brain activity, while people were wearing their shoes. They noted that wearers felt more “confident and powerful”, and this led to more sales. (2)
Marketing is constantly evolving due to the changing media landscape and developments in technology. As understanding ads becomes more complex, and consumers are bombarded more and more with new messages, Neuromarketing is used to identify which specific parts of the brain are involved when processing advertising and to measure levels of consumer engagement.
It is well understood that images are processed more quickly than text. In fact, visual stimuli drive nearly 90% of sensory information by the human brain, with images generally being processed in 13 milliseconds (3). Emotional reactions can greatly improve both long-term and short-term memory.
Traditionally, most advertising analytics are based mainly on self-report measures, which are acknowledged to be relatively inaccurate(4), particularly when the evaluations concern issues such as preference, novelty, impact, and satisfaction. To limit speculation of this type, the neuromarketing approach seems to be a successful alternative.
As mentioned previously above in the instance of Nike, there is a tool called a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Others are the positron emission tomography (PET), electroencephalography(EEG), galvanic skin response (GSR), eye tracking, and facial emotion recognition technologies.
The development of these research techniques allows marketers to gain a deeper understanding of customer behaviour by observing their brain activity in response to ads and other marketing messages.This research can be used to help develop and optimise marketing strategies and help identify the most powerful and persuasive elements of ads, create memorable and attention-grabbing audio-visual content, and build a much stronger emotional connection with customers.
5.1. Ethical Considerations
As with any tool, there are ethical considerations that need to be taken into account. Using neural measurement techniques to gauge a customer's response to a commercial stimulus evokes ethical concerns that must be addressed (5).
Some people may feel that using these techniques is an invasion of their privacy, particularly if it leads to personalised advert and similar customisations.
5.2. Future Implications
We are likely to see more companies start using these techniques following the steps of these larger brands that have already embraced neuromarketing, which could make it cheaper and more affordable over time. However, there will be the potential to witness desensitisation and habituation of neural reactions (6). This will be associated with multiple exposures to similar commercials and banners, which can be seen during ad bombardment.
References:
(1) https://www.techtarget.com/searchcustomerexperience/definition/neuromarketing
(2) https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/decoding-neuromarketing-shaping-consumer-behavior-gur-arieh-golan/
(3) https://news.mit.edu/2014/in-the-blink-of-an-eye-0116#
(4) https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-i-never-use-self-reported-data-surveys-robert-barcik/
(5) https://knepublishing.com/index.php/KnE-Social/article/view/5082/10176#
(6) https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/desensitization