NEUROMARKETING

Its easy for businesses to keep track of what we buy, but harder to
figure out why. Enter a nascent field called neuromarketing, which uses
the tools of neuroscience to determine why we prefer some products
over others. Many major corporations have begun to take special
interest in how understanding the human brain can help them better
understand consumers.
What is neuromarketing?
Neuromarketing is the formal study of the brain's responses to advertising and
branding, and the adjustment of those messages based on feedback to elicit
even better responses. Researchers use technologies such as functional
magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electroencephalography (EEG) to
measure specific types of brain activity in response to advertising messages.
With this information, companies learn why consumers make the decisions they
do, and what parts of the brain are motivating them to do so.
Neuromarketing has revealed significant new information about human
preferences and emotional responses by measuring the brain activation when
customers view and evaluate different products or advertisements
EXAMPLE In 2007, neuroscientists at the University of California Los Angeles
scanned the brains of people watching commercials during the Super Bowl, the
annual championship game in professional American football. Large advertisers
paid up to $85,000 per second to connect with viewers during the game. While
people watched the advertisements, a functional magnetic resonance imaging
(fMRI) machine scanned neural activity in areas of the brain responsible for
everything from language to emotion. The results showed that, whereas a
Doritos spot stimulated empathy and connection, many of the other expensive
ads provoked anxiety and fear.
Companies such as Google, CBS, Frito-Lay, and A & E Television amongst others have used
neuromarketing research services to measure consumer thoughts on their advertisements or
products.

The easiest way to present and understand neuromarketing is pepsi challenge.

Pepsi/ Cola challenge
Many people are familiar with the Pepsi Challenge: In a blind-taste test,
consumers are asked to choose between Pepsi and Coca-Colaand to no ones
surprise, Pepsi wins. However, a decade ago, neuroscientist Read Montague
posed a question: If people truly prefer Pepsi over Coke, why isnt Pepsi
dominating the market?
Hoping to answer this question, Montague created a Pepsi Challenge of his own,
hooking up his test subjects to an MRI machine to track brain activity. At first,
about half of the participants said they preferred Pepsi; however, when Montague

told them which samples were Coca-Cola, preferences shifted to three-to-one in

favor of Coke. Additionally, he observed heightened activity had in the prefrontal
cortex, part of the brain that controls higher thinking; as well as in the
hippocampus, which relates to memory. Montague concluded that the brain was
recalling images and ideas from commercials, and that the thoughts and
emotions connected to the branding were overriding reactions to the actual
quality of the product
Why measure brain activity?
Our brains work extremely hard to perceive, process and interpret the millions of
inputs they receive from our senses every second. The vast majority of this
activity goes on without us being consciously aware of it because we dont need
to be, our subconscious expertly deals with the administration for us. However,
the subconscious isnt just doing the menial work, its where our emotions do the
talking and call the shots on up to 95% of our behaviour.
Every marketers dream is to speak to this subconscious and make sure it flags
their product, in the right light, to the brains owner on their behalf. If you want
your website, product, packaging, advertising and brand experiences to speak
directly to the subconscious emotional brain, then you need to measure these
experiences directly.
Techniques and methods in neuromarketing
There are a number of techniques and methods that neuromarketing uses for
detecting hidden information. Lewis (2004) affirms two most important
techniques of analysing human brain activities that are used in neuromarketing fMRI and EEG:
fMRI - Functional magnetic resonance imaging is the most frequent technique of
scanning human brain in neuromarketing. The functional magnetic resonance is
a technique using powerful magnetic and radio waves to create high-quality
brain images. This technique uses MRI scanner to measure the level of oxygen in
blood in certain brain areas. Changes in the oxygen level correlate with brain
activity. The more active is a brain area, the more oxygen it requires, and this is
recorded in 1152 minute detail by the scanner. The result is most frequently a
fragmented brain area shown in colours.
The second most frequently used method is EEG - electroencephalography.
The method uses electrodes placed on the skull to assess the electrical activity
of the neurons. Owing to a very high temporal resolution (millisecond), EEG can
detect a very short neuronal "spike". EEG technique is the most practical among
the currently developed method of brain scanning; it is the most cost-effective
and the most suitable, due to the simplicity of use and compactness of the
apparatus which is able to make a quantitative assessment of brain activities
through the high level of sensitivity and temporal resolution.
When observing brain activities with the aid of fMRI and EEG techniques,
researches actually detect the brain areas which "switch on" with regard to

certain sounds, scents, images and messages. The gathered information is then
combined with traditional questionnaires and is further analysed and placed into
the correlation and context of consumer behaviour. These methods have made
quite a "fuss" in public and among scientists.
Current Uses of Neuromarketing
Numerous different views and opinions on what neuromarketing has been
used .We will set out with two examples from the motor- and the food industry
and then lastly turn our attention to the entertainment industry.
Hyundai Motors Hyundai uses EEG-tests in the design-process of their cars to
measure consumers reactions, when looking at specific parts of a cars exterior
design. As Macko, manager of brand strategy at Hyundai Motors, expresses it:
We want to know what consumers think about a car before we start
manufacturing thousands of them . Thus, Mackoo implies that by applying EEGtests to the design phase, the technology can potentially save the company
money, as bad designs will be picked up in the tests and hereby prevent
Hyundai to develop models that will fail on their looks when they 44 are
launched.
Cheetos The American snack producer Frito Lay has used neuromarketing on
several occasions Through use of neuroimaging Frito Lay found that the
glittering, bright-coloured packaging they were using for potato chips in 2008
triggered the anterior cingulate cortex of the brain, an area associated with
feelings of guilt. When testing another type of packaging in matte beige colours
with images of potatoes and other ingredients perceived as healthy, no activity
of the anterior cingulate cortex was evident. Thus, Frito Lay switched out of shiny
packaging and opted for the matte design with healthy ingredients depictured
instead .Through EEG-tests Frito Lay also discovered that an important factor for
consumers, when choosing Cheetos over other snacks, was the orange cheese
dust sticking to the fingers after having touched the snack. The company took
this knowledge and developed a campaign of TV-commercials called The
Orange Underground, with storylines evolving around pranks using the orange
coloured cheese dust. The focus group reacted negatively to a commercial in
which a woman puts Cheetos in a dryer full of someone elses white clothes, as
the group responded that they did not like the prank. However, when conducting
EEG-tests where subjects were shown the same commercial, the brain activity
showed that the subjects actually really liked the commercial . In fact, The
Orange Underground campaign was granted The Grand Ogilvy Award from the
Advertising Research Foundation in 2009 This commercial is a prime example of
how neuromarketing might prove beneficial.

Perspectives of neuromarketing
As it was stated above, the greatest advantage of neuromarketing is precisely
the ability to detect hidden information in the consumer's mind. There are a few

areas where neuromarketing could have a considerable role, particularly in the

stage of designing a product/service:
Food A high potential of neuromarketing lies in designing food and juices
which could be created in line with the taste and desire of consumers. As the
perception of a product is achieved under the influence of a set of factors such
as taste, scent, texture, appearance, even sound, which are so complex that
even the respondents themselves would not be able to explain, the brain
scanning technology could be of great help. Such methods could be used in food
production in order to make food more appealing (for example, healthy food or
food for children). However, some researchers point out a disadvantage of this
approach and this is a potential possibility of creating "super food" so tasty
that almost no one could resist it. This is likely to result in obesity, health issues,
and threatened free will of consumers.
Entertainment This is an area where neuromarketing has not been enough
active yet. The area surely has a large potential. If we know that making an
average high-budget Hollywood movie costs approximately 100 million dollars,
plus additional 100 million dollars needed for marketing, the potential value of
neuromarketing in the film industry is obvious. Neuromarketing research can be
designed in such a way that the respondents are given an opportunity to watch
two versions of a movie. After comparing the brain images, the version which
stimulated more activity in the desired brain areas can be released into movie
theatres.
Architecture This is certainly an interesting and atypical area for using
neuromarketing. Some studies using human brain scanning during driving or
orientation within buildings have already been conducted in order to produce
information on how to design buildings (for accommodation or public use) which
would be easier for their users to find their way around.
Politics It seems that politics is omnipresent, including the neuromarketing.
This is another interesting area requiring huge funds, which could benefit from
the introduction of neuromarketing techniques and methods. According to data,
the cost of the US presidential campaign amounted to 1.6 billion dollars in 2008.
If we observe political candidates in the context of marketing, they are "goods"
that should be "sold" to voters. Candidates and their campaigns operate in two
stages before and after the "image designing". Neuromarketing could be used
before "designing" when these candidates, their messages and the nature of
campaign could be better designed owing to previous neuromarketing research
ETHICAL PROBLEMS
1. With regard to neuromarketing and its methods, the first and foremost issue
that the public is concerned with is certainly the possibility of creating such
products and marketing campaigns that would be "impossible to resist". The
general public is concerned about finding a purchase key, i.e. a brain area
which is in charge of purchase. They also claim, as most of other authors do, that
the present-day technologies do not provide the possibility of "access" to the

human brain with the purpose of manipulation, in the way that the manipulation
results in an exactly desired behaviour.
2. Question of privacy of information on consumer preferences. Namely, we are
witnessing the selling of information about our preferences and activities to
companies. It is particularly emphasised in the "internet marketing" where a
number of more or less private information (such as e-mail address, history of
purchase, search history) is shared/sold among companies. Another issue refers
to handling of the images obtained by brain scanning. Many questions require to
be answered: who owns these images, who has right to access them
Theoretically, it may occur that, during a neuromarketing survey, the fMRI
scanner detects a disease in a respondent's brain. The information could be
forwarded to the employer who could then lay off the employee. Due to this and
many other issues
CONCLUSION
Marketing has changed in recent years. It can be said that it has become more
focused on individuals and their needs. The change has been encouraged by the
emergence of a new branch of marketing called the neuromarketing. The latter
has appeared as a product of introducing neuroscientific methods into the
marketing system. This application has enabled "insights into human brain" and
finding previously unknown facts and data. All these insights have been
implemented in practice to create a product/brand which will "provoke"
consumer's emotions and which will not make him/her indifferent. In short, it
could be asserted that neuromarketing relies on the fact that many decisions,
about 70% of them, are made at a sub-conscious level and that many people can
not explain the reasons for making their decisions in a logical way.
Neuromarketing provides a possibility of detecting the data about purchase
decision-making and buyers' preferences that have not been known until now. In
order to turn the data into information, neuromarketing will have to "learn" how
to connect the gathered data with customers' preferences, selection and
behaviour, in order to achieve the set goals, which certainly represents one of
the future research areas of neuromarketing. Therefore it is expected that the
future research in this area will focus precisely on understanding the cause-effect
relations between the activities of 1161 a particular brain area and the
customer's actions. It should be said that neuromarketing has a great potential,
both commercial and social.