What is Neuromarketing? Advantages of Neuromarketing

Neuromarketing is a revolutionary approach to understanding consumer behavior, utilizing the latest medical technologies to measure and analyze responses in the brain. Through this groundbreaking practice, we can gain invaluable insight into how consumers react to various marketing stimuli.

Exploring the area of neuromarketing is an invigorating opportunity to employ neuroscience to comprehend consumer habits and optimize marketing tactics. Neuromarketing techniques assess physiological and neural signals of human behavior to assess the consumer decision making process more effectively than traditional marketing methods.

Neuromarketing is the application of neuroscience and cognitive science to marketing.

— Says Roger Dooley, the author of Brainfluence: 100 Ways to Persuade and Convince Consumers with Neuromarketing (Wiley), and the owner of the popular blog Neuromarketing.

Neuromarketing suggests that both emotional and rational thinking exists at the same time. Just like neuroscience which helps in gathering information regarding the function and structure of the brain. The process of neuromarketing contains several mechanisms related to neuroscience like decision making, reasoning, memory, emoting, etc. before buying a particular product.

What is Neuromarketing?

Marketers can now tap into the power of neuroscience to gain a better grasp on customers’ feelings and thoughts through neuromarketing. By testing various tools like eye-tracking, facial recognition, functional magnetic resonance imaging, Steady State Topography (SST), and brain scans, marketers can measure consumer behavior more accurately than ever before. This new technology is revolutionizing how products and services get marketed – opening doors for businesses across all industries!

Neuromarketing and consumer neuroscience use such effective methods which directly help in probing minds without demanding any kind of participation from the consumer. Nowadays marketing professionals are spending large amounts in the field of advertising to capture the mind of focus groups through consumer behavior and know the facts live in their subconscious minds.

You can understand the concept of what is neuromarketing better with the following examples –

Examples of Neuromarketing

• Companies can trace where people are looking and how they respond when exposed to certain visuals. This data helps them decide which type of visual works best for particular products, enabling businesses to tailor their marketing strategies accordingly.
• Through the use of EEG headsets that measure brain activity, companies can obtain valuable insights into the effectiveness of their campaigns which they can then utilize to shape future strategies.

Usages of Neuromarketing Techniques

Neuromarketing helps the organization build brand positioning and loyalty. Emotions lead to the attention of the people and this may lead to the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of the customers. The phenomenon leading to satisfaction or dissatisfaction of the customers exists for the short term as there are many surveys conducted that resulted that even the consumers who are satisfied are walked away and those who are satisfied may be returned after some time.

Neuromarketing help in reducing failures related to marketing and helps in enhancing the success of marketing positively. Now a day’s spending a large amount on advertising campaigns .it will lead marketing professionals to monitor the need of the brain with the help of scanning to judge which part of the brain is responding or active while watching an advertisement, if it fails to be responsive then the advertisement is failed in the test.

Responsive advertisement is intended to include excitement, passion, humor, emotional attachment, etc. to light up and become responsive to unconscious thought. Some of the applications of neuromarketing research methods are-

• UX/ website testing
• Rebranding
• Product design testing
• Second-by-second optimization of TV advertisements
• Multi-screen ready/cross-platform testing, etc

Neuromarketing Tools

1) FMRI: – (functional magnetic resonance imaging)

It is used to measure the activity of the brain with the help of detecting the level of oxygen in the blood flow when the brain is active it requires more oxygen.

2) MRI (Magnetic resonance imaging)

It is used to detect brain tumors and help to understand how the human brain processes and understands messages being transmitted by the content of the advertising.

3) EEG (Electroencephalography)

It measures and records the electrical activity of the brain.

4) MEG (magnetoencephalography)

it helps in giving information about brain activity with the help of using a magnetic field. It is used to measure direct brain activity, unlike fMRI.

5) SST (steady state topography)

It is used to record and measure the activity of the brain. It is having a high temporal resolution which helps to make it possible to use steady-state topography in the test of neuromarketing which is concerned with the advertisement on TV.

6) Respiratory rate

It is the number of times a person takes for 1 minute.

7) Heart rate

It is the count of heartbeats taking place for 1 minute. A pupil meter is a device that is used to measure the dilation of the pupil concerning the visual stimulus.

8) Galvanic skin response or skin conductance

It is used to detect the changes being occurred on the skin depending on the level of moisture.

9) Eye tracking method

It is a method in which eyes are tracked where they are focusing.

10) Voice Analysis

It helps in measuring psychophysiological stress that comes out of the vocal cords of the target audience.

Case Study of Pepsi & Coca-Cola using Neuromarketing

As to illustrate neuromarketing, let’s go through two of the famous beverages-soft drinks named “Pepsi and coca cola.”

Both of these beverages are identical but what works to choose from these two products is their brand preferences which are brought up with the help of neuromarketing. Researchers found that although both of these products are similar even then customers use to consume one over the other product.

Then researchers investigate and found that cultural messages lead to guide our perception of products which results in changing buying decisions. One experiment is done blindfolded and the other is done by knowing what beverage was what and with the help of which researchers observe their brain activity.

When the volunteers were unaware of the fact that which beverage they are consuming, fMRI measured activation of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex which is considered a reward center when they drank Pepsi.

However, when the volunteers are aware of which beverage they are consuming then the scan showed that the brain activity initiates in the hippocampus, midbrain, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (which is meant to be the center of memory and emotion) in the favor of coke based on emotional connection or nostalgia. People like the taste of Pepsi but they are more inclined toward coke.

From these results, researchers found that coke was preferred and is influenced by the brand image rather than its taste. For maintaining brand loyalty memory and emotions play an important role.

Does Neuromarketing Always Use Neuroscience?

Neuromarketing is a powerful, cutting-edge technology that uses the latest advances in neuroscience to drive consumer behavior and inspire loyalty. So, you may say that it always uses neuroscience to uncover how the human brain reactively interprets marketing messages and inspires buying decisions.

By leveraging cognitive psychology research, neuromarketing can help brands create meaningful connections with their customers. To start exploring the power of neuromarketing, early researchers employed tools such as EEG and fMRI to measure brain activity.

Although the definition of consumer neuroscience usually only includes measurements that capture brain activity, current studies include behavioral elements such as facial coding, brain imaging, eye tracking, and implicit testing. Additionally, biometric data like heart rate and galvanic skin response are being used to measure emotion-driven decisions without directly measuring neural activity. In essence, consumer neuroscience is rapidly evolving to encompass a broader range of techniques for understanding consumers’ needs and desires.

What is consumer neuroscience?

When neuromarketing first emerged, there were a few enthusiastic service providers who embraced it, though academics largely disdained and disparaged it. As the topic lacked scientific backing from peer-reviewed research at this time, university researchers refused to recognize it as an area of legitimate study–instead equating its importance to parapsychology or UFOs.

In 2012, some influencers in the neuromarketing business had an idea – to rebrand it as “consumer neuroscience” and make sure that only those with a real science-based approach would be associated with this field. That was done to shed off its negative image caused by overzealous providers making false promises.

Is Neuromarketing manipulative?

Neuromarketing is a powerful tool used in commercial marketing that takes advantage of neuropsychology to gain insight into consumer behavior.

Consumer neuroscience tools study how people react to various forms of marketing, whether it be through sensorimotor responses, cognitive processing, or emotional reactions. By understanding these different triggers and behaviors, businesses can develop effective strategies that target their customers more accurately.

Marketers will benefit immensely from the utilization of effective marketing strategies and campaigns, fewer product failures, and even better – they can manipulate customer needs to meet their wants. All in all, this could significantly increase marketing gains while still providing customers with what they desire.

Is All Marketing Neuromarketing?

Despite all marketing campaigns striving to spark certain brain activity that elicits the desired response, those marketing efforts which don’t leverage neuroscience findings and insights are excluded from neuromarketing.

Consequently, Neuromarketing doesn’t encompass the entire marketing landscape.

Advantages of Neuromarketing

• A better understanding of customer behavior: with the help of filling gaps between neuromarketing is a tool that helps in highlighting blind spots which are left by using traditional methods while doing marketing research. Therefore it helps in understanding the behavior as well as their insights. To simply explain neuromarketing it is something like if a customer plans to drink tea and after reaching the café orders black coffee.
• Uses market research data as well as neural activity: Neuromarketing not only derives data from information provided with the help of survey answers but also observes eye movements, facial expressions, shifts of the mouse cursor, etc. which comes out from the unconscious mind to help in determining desires which are true rather than consciously questioning and answering in a controlled manner.
• It acts as a Value for money: the new digital tools and techniques, it helps lower the price of the research by providing quality insight, The software tools available online today provide depth and quality of insights which is available at a lower price.
• It provides improved reliability of results: neuromarketing reaches out to the unconscious mind of the customer. It helps in understanding the reactions taking place in the subconscious mind of every customer as the mind functions universally the same. The analysis of such reactions leads to comprehending the decision-making pattern of customers. Customers can easily lie in the state of consciousness but the brain can’t lie, as it can’t control the unconsciousness of the brain. It is very helpful in determining reliable data by getting true reactions to the product.
• Linking content to the physiological reactions: with the help of establishing links between physiological reactions and particular videos of the moments. Elements related to the website, design of packaging, etc., and measurement of emotions provided through the reaction of customers lead to improve those parts which lack or indulge in provoking negative feedback.

Here is a video by Marketing91 on Neuromarketing.

Criticism of Neuromarketing

• Ethical concerns: some people think that it is getting inside the brain of the customer but the reality is that neuromarketing used to do what a psychologist does. It helps in learning patterns and outcomes of behavior not more than that.
• Specific skills are required: more specific skills lead to the higher achievement of insights. In the past, it is required to have a scientific background but now it is so easy to understand the reports with the advancement of technology.
• Equipment is expensive: neuromarketing and the related cost are expensive.
• Lack of privacy: the individual is not insured from leakage of data.

Conclusion!

Due to the changing lifestyle and living standards, marketers need to know and capture the subconscious mind of the customers. To fulfill the demand of the customers, it is required to make products preferably inclined to the customer needs.

Therefore neuromarketing is necessary as it is known as the branch of neuroscience .it helps researchers with the help of using medical technologies to know the reactions of the consumer regarding particular brands, advertisements, or slogans related to it.