 - Neuromarketing is a field of study using neuroscience technology, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), to see how people's brains respond to advertising and other brand-related messages. Typically, researchers connect subjects to a functional MRI (fMRI) machine and watch their brain activity throughout an experiment.
In one example, neuroscientist Read Montague used a functional MRI to study what he calls the "Pepsi paradox": In a blind taste test, subjects were fairly evenly divided between Pepsi and Coke; however, when the subjects knew what they were drinking, 75% said they preferred Coke. In these tests, Montague saw activity in the prefrontal cortex, indicating higher thought processes. The researcher concluded that the subjects were likely associating the drink with images and branding messages from commercials. In another study, at Daimler-Chrysler, researchers found that the "reward" centers of men's brains were activated by sports cars, similarly to the way those areas respond to alcohol and drugs. Other research, involving United States political campaign messages, found that the brains of Democrats and Republicans responded differently to images of the Sept. 11th terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.
Some anti-marketing activists, such as Gary Ruskin of Commercial Alert, warn that neuromarketing could ultimately be used to manipulate consumers by more effectively playing on their fears or stimulating positive responses. Practitioners argue that such precise manipulation is neither possible nor desirable. BrightHouse, an Atlanta-based consultancy firm, conducts neuromarketing research and delivers seminars on the topic. According to BrightHouse, there is no way for their studies to reliably predict consumer behavior; neuromarketing only seeks to understand "how and why customers develop relationships with products, brands, and the company itself."
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01 Jan 2005
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