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Adrian Sparrow Neuromarketing, sometimes called consumer neuroscience, is the study of the brain to predict and manipulate consumer behavior. It includes evaluating advertising and branding to understand how customers react subconsciously and their purchase decisions without testing specific ads or materials. Its study has increased in recent years as technology and its potential for marketers has grown. As techniques are still being developed, efficiency must come into consideration.
Tools The former can see deep within the brain but is cumbersome and costly. The latter is much more economical in size and price but can’t track activity deep within the brain or pinpoint where it occurs. Measuring the peripheral senses is much more affordable and easier for marketing teams. Eye-tracking measures attention and arousal through eye movement and pupil dilation; facial-expression coding measures emotional responses through the face’s muscle movements; vitals like heart and respiration rates and skin conductivity measure arousal. Despite ‘promising academic findings,’ marketers are reluctant to utilize consumer neuroscience, partly due to “an overall pessimism regarding the technique’s ability to generate useful insights beyond those offered by traditional marketing methods”(source). Brain scans can reveal how people react differently to the same product with different prices and similar products with another package. The issue is, so can simple behavioral studies. Such studies come with their own pros and cons, especially related to human behavior: people have poor memory recall and limited vocabularies, people might lie to please somebody, or feel embarrassed and alter their answers. Brain data side-steps the mouth, which doesn’t always accurately render what’s happening in the mind.
Changing consumers’ minds
Examples Marketing has always existed to further a product or services’ effectiveness, and consumer neuroscience is the futuristic- but very real- next step in consumer marketing.
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