Unlocking Consumers’ Minds - Neuromarketing

dbacic47
Apr 4
6 min read

Author: Grace Jakobs

The unconscious mind is a major influence on an individual’s choices. An emerging technique, neuroimaging, helps get a closer look into the unconscious mind. Within the marketing field, this is a means of making an image of a person’s brain to understand their behavior about markets and commercial trade, also known as neuromarketing.

Neuromarketing was mentioned in the early 2000s as the neuroeconomic field grew. In the following years, the relationship between marketing and neuroscientific methods steadily grew. Neuromarketing had the potential to shed light on new approaches in the marketing field, which piqued many scholars’ interests. However, the ratio of interested scholars and high-quality research in neuromarketing was disproportionate. The lack of research was due to costly equipment, lack of training, and rising criticisms. The Neuromarketing field is left in an unusual role: the power to impact the marketing field but lack of accredited support.

What is Neuromarketing?

The main goal of neuromarketing is to reveal the consumers’ subconscious purchasing decisions that are exclusively influenced by marketing techniques. The results can assist researchers in understanding the area of the brain that processes the stimuli and the physiological consequences concerning the nervous system, thus providing the cognitive, psychological, and emotional processes that affect the individual’s consumption behavior. Understanding the consumer’s subconscious behavior allows companies to create marketing strategies that trigger positive feelings. It also avoids elements that deter consumers, allowing companies to develop more useful and pleasant products. Neuromarketing can influence branding and brand positioning strategies that conceptually rely on consumer behavior. The effectiveness of neuromarketing is based on analyzing emotional processes. Various techniques are employed to identify the brain regions activated by a marketing stimulus.

Techniques

The techniques used in neuromarketing can be divided into two categories: neuroimaging and non-neuroimaging.

Neuroimaging is a non-invasive technique that captures detailed images of the brain. These are the four neuroimaging techniques that are most associated with neuromarketing.

1. Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)

This technique monitors blood flow in response to a stimulus by an individual entering an MRI machine that takes snapshots of the brain. A consumer requires more blood flow to make a purchasing decision; if the consumer is interested, the prefrontal cortex lights up, identifying an increase in neural activity. The prefrontal cortex activity heightens the probability of a purchase. fMRI is one of the most effective methods but also the most expensive.

2. Steady State Typography (SST)

This electro-dermal method monitors brain activity in response to advertising stimuli. The individual wears a lightweight cap and goggles that record activity related to visual attention, working memory, long-term memory, and emotional processes. Although this method is comprehensive, it has limitations compared to fMRI, as SST does not reveal the specific locations of brain activity.

3. Electroencephalography (EEG)

EEG measures and records electrical activity using a helmet or a band placed directly on the scalp. The reaction to stimuli originates from neurons and is converted into brain waves that are analyzed. The EEG method gives real-time readings yet fails to measure the origin of the activity, like fMRI.

4. Magneto-Encephalography (MEG)

This method is very similar to fMRI but quicker in detecting brain activity, allowing the magnetic field to go as deep as required. Although seemingly the best route for data collection, it is widely more expensive than fMRI.

Non-neuroimaging refers to imaging techniques that do not focus on the brain or nervous system but rather on other parts of the body. Three methods are most used in neuromarketing.

1. Galvanic Skin Response (GSR)

This method measures arousal when the skin momentarily has electrical activity. GSR provides insight into the neural responses of the nervous system through the hands, which precede emotions like happiness, sadness, fear, anger, disgust, and indifference.

2. Eye Tracking

This popular method is often used along with other techniques like EEG and fMRI. Eye tracking records the eyes as they view stimuli, measuring first fixation, time to first fixation, most fixations, individual gaze time, total gaze time, and saccades. There are three forms of eye-tracking equipment: stationary infrared, glasses-based infrared, and webcam-based. Eye tracking is the most accessible and affordable technique but has a higher rate of data collection discrepancies.

3. Facial Recognition

This facial coding software has been gaining popularity. The technique involves using embedded cameras to record facial expressions and interpret them in real time. Three key performance indicators assist in understanding the consumers: attention, engagement, and sentiment. Although facial recognition can provide insight into consumers’ purchasing behavior, its reliance is questioned due to a high margin of inconsistency and bias.

Benefits

Neuromarketing is beneficial to the marketing field. The techniques of neuromarketing allow data collection to minimize its margin of error compared to its counterparts: surveys and focus groups. Consumers can't pinpoint the moment or aspect that ignites positive or negative emotions, but with neuromarketing, researchers can efficiently find the origin of emotion. Thus, companies could change, critique, or develop their brand/product according to the data results extracted through neuromarketing techniques. Surprisingly, the monetary comparison between neuromarketing research and self-reporting (focus groups, surveys) shows neuromarketing as the cheaper and sufficient option. When looking at a brand, it is hard to know exactly what marketing/ brand tactics contribute to its success. That is where neuromarketing comes in, allowing researchers to analyze what attributes positively influence purchasing behavior.

Criticisms

A common question asked, “Is Neuromarketing ethical?” Ethics is about the individual’s free will, specifically the freedom of choice. If ethics is put in the context of marketing and neuroscience, ethics essentially doesn’t exist. Neuroscience dislodges the idea of freedom of choice because human subconsciousness influences our behavior. Therefore, decision-making is beyond human control and a byproduct of consciousness.

Marketing focuses on the benefit of the business owner. For the business owner to succeed, the consumer's needs must be met. A business owner cannot succeed without a customer base, so freedom of choice doesn’t play a role. In neuroscience and marketing, ethics are often absent. Consumer loyalty is a crucial factor, and companies have a responsibility to maintain the trust of their customers. While companies benefit from this trust, consumers also gain advantages.

Outside of ethics, critics have associated neuromarketing with pseudoscience due to its lack of credible support and ‘back-door’ approach to consumer opinions. Neuromarketing has been summed up as a complex way of explaining consumers' common knowledge.

Example

A notable example of a neuromarketing study by Martin Lindstrom in the early 2000s focused on the effectiveness of anti-smoking ads. The ban on tobacco ads and the stream-lined gruesome pictures didn’t deter consumers from smoking, so Lindstrom conducted a study looking at brain activity when viewing anti-smoking ads. Interviews and SST scanning were utilized in this study, and the self-reporting data showed all subjects felt a certain degree of guilt for smoking. The results of the SST scanning showed the negative cigarette warning labels stimulated the brain, essentially igniting their craving. Simultaneously, no areas of the brain lit up as an indication of guilt when viewing the ads contradicting the self-reporting results. Lindstrom’s study concluded that the outrageous budget for anti-smoking ads was a waste and stimulated smokers’ cravings. Martin Lindstrom’s study emphasized the importance of neuromarketing and the unreliability of self-reporting.

Conclusion

Neuromarketing is still an emerging field that holds great potential. The human subconscious holds the key to behavioral actions like purchasing and decision-making. Self-reporting doesn’t reflect the true reasoning behind a person’s choices, distorting the consumer’s needs. Neuromarketing techniques allow researchers to explore new avenues of marketing and companies to adhere to consumers’ needs. Criticisms of ethical matters remain low risk, and lack of research shouldn’t undermine the entirety of neuromarketing.

Further Links to Explore

References

Excerpt from buyology. Penguin Random House Canada. (n.d.). https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/101773/buyology-by-martin-lindstrom/9780385523899/excerpt
Fortunato, V. C., Giraldi, J. D., & De Oliveira, J. H. (2014). A review of studies on neuromarketing: Practical results, techniques, contributions and limitations. Journal of Management Research, 6(2), 201. https://doi.org/10.5296/jmr.v6i2.5446
Hilderbrand, M. L. (2016). Neuromarketing: An essential tool in the future of advertising and brand development (thesis). Neuromarketing: an essential tool in the future of advertising and brand development. University of Texas, Austin, Tex.
Talimonchuk, T. (2024, August 21). What is neuromarketing: Techniques and examples. Claspo.io. https://claspo.io/blog/what-is-neuromarketing-techniques-and-examples/

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