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= Neuromarketing =
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Introduction
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Neuromarketing is a commercial marketing communication field that
applies neuropsychology to marketing research, studying consumers'
sensorimotor, cognitive, and affective response to marketing stimuli.
Neuromarketing seeks to understand the rationale behind how consumers
make purchasing decisions and their responses to marketing stimuli in
order to apply those learnings in the marketing realm. The potential
benefits to marketers include more efficient and effective marketing
campaigns and strategies, fewer product and campaign failures, and
ultimately the manipulation of the real needs and wants of people to
suit the needs and wants of marketing interests.
Certain companies, particularly those with large-scale ambitions to
predict consumer behaviour, have invested in their own laboratories,
science personnel or partnerships with academia.
History
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Neuromarketing is a recent emerging disciplinary field in marketing.
It also borrows similar tools and methodologies from other fields such
as neuroscience and psychology. The term "neuromarketing" was
introduced in 2002 by Dutch marketing professor Ale Smidts, but
research in the field can be found earlier in 1990s.
Gerald Zaltman is associated with one of the first experiments in
neuromarketing. In the late 1990s, both Gemma Calvert (UK) and Gerald
Zaltman (USA) had established consumer neuroscience companies.
Marketing professor Gerald Zaltman patented the 'Zaltman metaphor
elicitation technique' (ZMET) in the 1990s with the purpose to sell
advertising. ZMET explored the human subconscious with specially
selected sets of images that cause a positive emotional response and
activate hidden images, metaphors stimulating the purchase. Graphical
collages were constructed on the base of detected images, which lays
in the basis for commercials. ZMET quickly gained popularity among
hundreds of major companies-customers including Coca-Cola, General
Motors, Nestle, Procter & Gamble. Zaltman and his associates were
employed by those organizations to investigate brain scans and observe
neural activity of consumers. In 1999, he began to use the fMRI to
show correlations between consumer brain activity and marketing
stimuli. Zaltman's marketing research methods enhanced psychological
research used in marketing tools.
The term 'neuromarketing' was first published in 2002 in an article by
'BrightHouse', a marketing firm based in Atlanta. BrightHouse
sponsored neurophysiologic (nervous system functioning) research into
marketing divisions; they constructed a business unit that used fMRI
scans for market research purposes. The firm rapidly attracted
criticism and disapproval concerning conflict of interest with Emory
University, who helped establish the division. This enterprise
disappeared from public attention and now works with over 500 clients
and consumer-product businesses. The "Pepsi Challenge", a blind taste
test of Coca-Cola and Pepsi, was a study conducted in 2004 that
brought attention to neuromarketing. In 2006, Dr. Carl Marci (USA)
founded Innerscope Research that focused on Neuromarketing research.
Innerscope research was later acquired by the Nielsen Corporation in
May 2015 and renamed 'Nielsen Consumer Neuroscience'. Unilever's
'Consumer Research Exploratory Fund' (CREF) too had been publishing
white papers on the potential applications of neuromarketing.
Concept
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Collecting information on how the target market would respond to a
product is the first step involved for organisations advertising a
product. Traditional methods of marketing research include focus
groups or sizeable surveys used to evaluate features of the proposed
product. Some of the conventional research techniques used in this
type of study are the measurement of cardiac electrical activity (ECG)
and electrical activity of the dermis (AED) of subjects. However, it
results in an incompatibility between market research findings and the
actual behavior exhibited by the target market at the point of
purchase. Human decision-making is both a conscious and non-conscious
process in the brain, and while this method of research succeeded in
gathering explicit (or conscious) emotions, it failed to gain the
consumer's implicit (or unconscious) emotions. Non-conscious
information has a large influence in the decision-making process.
A greater understanding of human cognition and behaviour has led to
the integration of biological and social sciences: Neuromarketing, a
recent method utilized to understand consumers. The concept of
neuromarketing combines marketing, psychology and neuroscience.
Research is conducted around the implicit motivations to understand
consumer decisions by non-invasive psychoanalysis methods of measuring
brain activity. These include electroencephalography (EEG),
magnetoencephalography (MEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging
(fMRI), eye tracking, electrodermal response measures and other
neuro-technologies. Researchers investigate and learn how consumers
respond and feel when presented with products and/or related stimuli.
Observations can then be correlated with a participants surmised
emotions and social interactions. Market researchers use this
information to determine if products or advertisements stimulate
responses in the brain linked with positive emotions. The concept of
neuromarketing was therefore introduced to study relevant human
emotions and behavioral patterns associated with products, ads and
decision-making. Neuromarketing provides models of consumer behavior
and can also be used to re-interpret extant research. It provides
theorization of emotional aspects of consumer behavior.
Consumer behavior investigates both an individuals conscious choices
and underlying brain activity levels. For example, neural processes
observed provide a more accurate prediction of population-level data
in comparison to self-reported data. Neuromarketing can measure the
impacts of branding and market strategies before applying them to
target consumers. Marketers can then advertise the product so that it
communicates and meets the needs of potential consumers with different
predictions of choice.
Neuromarketing is also used with Big Data in understanding modern-day
advertising channels such as social networking, search behavior and
website engagement patterns.. Agencies like
[
https://darlingwebdesign.com Darling] help organizations use this
kind of neuroscience in their marketing to better communicate with
consumers at the subconscious level.
Segmentation and positioning
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Based on the proposed neuromarketing concept of decision processing,
consumer buying decisions rely on either System 1 or System 2
processing or Plato's two horses and a chariot. System 1 thinking was
intuitive, unconscious, effortless, fast and emotional. In contrast,
decisions driven by System 2 were deliberate, conscious reasoning,
slow and effortful. Zurawicki that buying decisions are driven by
one's mood and emotions; concluding that compulsive and or spontaneous
purchases were driven by System 1.
Marketers use segmentation and positioning to divide the market and
choose the segments they will use to position themselves to
strategically target their ad. Using the neurological differences
between genders can alter target market and segment. Research has
shown that structural differences between the male and female brain
has strong influence on their respective decisions as consumers.
Young people represent a high share of buyers in many industries
including the electronics market and fashion industry. Due to the
development of brain maturation, adolescents are subject to strong
emotional reaction, although can have difficulty identifying the
emotional expression of others. Marketers can use this neural
information to target adolescents with shorter, attention-grabbing
messages (using various media, like sound or moving images), and ones
that can influence their emotional expressions clearly. Teenagers rely
on more 'gut feeling' and don't fully think through consequences, so
are mainly consumers of products based on excitement and impulse. Due
to this behavioural quality, segmenting the market to target
adolescent's can be beneficial to marketers that advertise with an
emotional, quick response approach.
Pseudoscience
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Many of the claims of companies that sell neuromarketing services make
are not based on actual neuroscience and have been debunked as hype,
and have been described as part of a fad of pseudoscientific
"neuroscientism" in popular culture. Joseph Turow, a communications
professor at the University of Pennsylvania, dismisses neuromarketing
as another reincarnation of gimmicky attempts for advertisers to find
non-traditional approaches toward gathering consumer opinion. He is
quoted in saying, "There has always been a holy grail in advertising
to try to reach people in a hypodermic way. Major corporations and
research firms are jumping on the neuromarketing bandwagon, because
they are desperate for any novel technique to help them break through
all the marketing clutter. 'It's as much about the nature of the
industry and the anxiety roiling through the system as it is about
anything else."
Privacy Invasion
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Some consumer advocate organizations, such as the Center for Digital
Democracy, have criticized neuromarketing's potentially invasive
technology. Neuromarketing is a controversial field that uses medical
technologies to build successful marketing campaigns according to Gary
Ruskin, an Executive Director of Commercial Alert. The issue in
privacy comes from consumers being unaware of the purpose of the
research, how the results will be used, or haven't even given consent
in the first place. Some are even afraid that neuromarketers will have
the ability to read a consumer's mind and put them at "risk of
discrimination, stigmatization, and coercion."
However, many industry associations across the world have taken
measures to address the issue around privacy. For example, The
Neuromarketing Science & Business Association has established
general principles and ethical guidelines surrounding best practices
for researchers to adhere to such as:
# Do not bring any kind of prejudice in research methodology, results
and participants
# Do not take advantage of participants lack of awareness in the field
# Communicate what participants should expect during research
(methodologies)
# Be honest with results
# Participant data should remain confidential
# Reveal data collection techniques to participants
# Do not coerce participants to join a research and allow them to
leave when they want
The above is not a full list of what researchers should abide by, but
it mitigates the risk of researchers breaching a participant's privacy
if they want their research to be academically recognized.
Manipulation
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Jeff Chester, the executive director of the Center for Digital
Democracy, claims that neuromarketing is �having an effect on
individuals that individuals are not informed about." Further, he
claims that though there has not historically been regulation on adult
advertising due to adults having defense mechanisms to discern what is
true and untrue, regulations should now be placed: "if the advertising
is now purposely designed to bypass those rational defenses ...
protecting advertising speech in the marketplace has to be
questioned."
Advocates nonetheless argue that society benefits from neuromarketing
innovations. German neurobiologist Kai-Markus Mueller promotes a
neuromarketing variant, "neuropricing", that uses data from brain
scans to help companies identify the highest prices consumers will
pay. Müller says "everyone wins with this method," because
brain-tested prices enable firms to increase profits, thus increasing
prospects for survival during economic recession.
Limitations
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Neuromarketing isn't a replacement of traditional marketing methods
but, rather, a field to be used alongside traditional methods to gain
a clearer picture of a consumer's profile. Neuromarketing provides
insights into the implicit decisions of a consumer, but its still
important to know the explicit decisions and attractions of consumers.
To run a complete marketing research, the usage of both neuromarketing
and traditional marketing experiments are necessary. As we know that
customers say what they think they should say, not what they feel, an
accurate research will happen in two steps:
1. understand what drive customers attention, emotions and memories
towards the brand or the product, using neuromarketing methodologies.
2. conduct conventional marketing researches such as focus group to
establish the marketing mix.
Neuromarketing is also limited by the high costs of conducting
research. Research requires a variety of technologies such as fMRI,
EEG, biometrics, facial coding, and eye-tracking to learn how
consumers respond and feel to stimuli. However, the cost to rent or
own these technologies and even then a lab may be needed to operate
the aforementioned technologies.
In Popular Culture
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The Off-Broadway play 'The Neurology of the Soul', by Edward Einhorn,
was set at a fictional neuromarketing firm.
See also
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* Behavioral economics
* Neuroeconomics
* Neuroethics
* Subliminal stimuli
References
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*
*
* Glanert, M. (2012). Behavioral Targeting Pros and Cons - Behavioral
Targeting Blog. Behavioral Targeting. Retrieved 31 March 2016, from
http://behavioraltargeting.biz/behavioral-targeting-pros-and-cons/
* Kotler, P., Burton, S., Deans, K., Brown, L., & Armstrong, G.
(2013). 'Marketing' (9th ed., pp. 171). Australia: Pearson.
* Kelly, M. (2002). 'The Science of Shopping � Commercial Alert'.
'Commercial Alert'. Retrieved 30 March 2016, from
http://www.commercialalert.org/news/archive/2002/12/the-science-of-shopping
*
*
*
*
*[
http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/6317.asp Media Maze:
Neuromarketing, Part I]
*
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/innovation/10/05/neuro.marketing/index.html
Further reading
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* Lindström, Martin (2010). 'Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We
Buy.' New York: Broadway Books
*
* Zaltman, Gerald (2003). 'How Customers Think: Essential Insights
into the Mind of the Markets.' Boston: Harvard Business School Press
*
External links
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* [
http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/Articles/cas01.html "Evolution and
Memes: The human brain as a selective imitation device"]: article by
Susan Blackmore.
*
[
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/susan_blackmore_on_memes_and_temes.html
Susan Blackmore: Memes and "temes"], TED Talks February 2008
*
License
=========
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Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuromarketing
