Neuromarketing: from measuring consumer preference to influencing consumer behavior

Trucks and cars ads were traditionally associated with beautiful and sexy girls striking a pose next to them. Most of the men seeing the ad will be influenced by the model, even if they don’t become fully aware of it. Sounds familiar?

This is what Michael Platt, director of Wharton neuroscience Initiative, suggests and many of us would agree with.

Above example is just a plain proof of how marketing influences consumers. Though marketers have gone beyond these traditional influential techniques by employing nowadays more advanced ones, like those of neuromarketing, also known as consumer neuroscience. These techniques aspire to replace surveys and focus groups, that are normally used when developing and launching a new product.

Neuromarketing is the science of gaining insights into customers’ behavior, preferences and decision making, by measuring the physiological and neural signs of the brain. These measurements are then used to help with product development, pricing, creative advertising and the alike.

Big companies like Facebook, Google and Amazon have their own neuroscience labs, where experiments are run and insights are used for major product launches.

Neuromarketing techniques

·              fMRI (functional magnetic resonance)

·     EEG (electroencephalogram)

·     Eye tracking: gaze

·     Eye tracking: pupillometry

·     Biometrics

·     Facial coding

fMRI and EEG are the primary tools of neuromarketing, but also the most expensive as well; thus out of reach for the vast majority of companies. Less expensive solutions like eye tracking are being used mainly for creative designing and ads.

A series of researches and studies were conducted at Emory, INSEAD, Pennsylvania and Stanford university, which demonstrate the power of brain scanning and how it can forecast the success of a product more accurately than traditional marketing techniques.

The challenge: an ethical ambiguity  

 Along with the high costs of using neuroscience in predicting consumer preference, there are some additional challenges related to adopting it. The pessimistic approach is perfectly described by a marketing professor at UC Berkeley: “neuroscience either tells me what I already know or tells me something new that I don’t care about.”

There is also the ethical concern: how transparent are the processes of scanning the brain for this matter? Isn’t it creepy to manipulate the human brain and its neuromodulators?

The solution 

 By better understanding the different techniques of neuromarketing and by carefully selecting the right partner that will provide the tools for such a process, there’s a good probability of better decision making when it comes to neuroforecasting, customer preferences and successful product launches.

Good news on the high costs of a fMRI device, too, as a few start-ups in Silicon Valley work on minimizing the costs of brain imaging.

The future looks rather interesting out there.