Neuromarketing: the new frontier or the old anecdote?
Neuromarketing promises to solve our everyday problems of finding the right words to get people to open our emails, click on our links, and buy our products. How best to brand our product to appeal to its target market, and even how to structure our website to keep our customers engaged.
According to Dooley (2014) “Neuromarketing is the application of neuroscience to marketing. Neuromarketing includes the direct use of brain imaging, scanning or other technology to measure brain activity to measure a subject’s response to products, packaging, advertising or other specific marketing elements.In some cases, the brain responses measured by these techniques may not be consciously perceived by the subject, therefore, these data may be more revealing than self-reports in surveys, in focus groups, etc.
Neuromarketing has been around for about 10 years, but it’s just starting to take off in terms of scientific research and substantial progress.
You probably know the distinction between the two cerebral hemispheres. The left hemisphere is the center of linear thought, such as language, logic, and mathematics. The right hemisphere is the center of conceptual thoughts such as art, music, and creativity. On top of this, research shows that there are three brains that work together and make up the whole. The nucleus of the brain is called the old brain and it evolved over the course of 375-60 million years ago, it is responsible for decision making. The next layer is called the midbrain, estimated to have developed several million years later, and is responsible for emotional processing. Finally we have the new brain, the last outermost one that is believed to have developed between 100,000 and 40,000 years ago and this determines our rational decisions, essentially it is this layer where we find our sense of self, identity and consciousness (Bhavanani, 2009).
With this in mind, Renvoise (2012) suggests that one of the problems is that in marketing we are addressing the decision-making part of our brain, and at 450 million years, almost everything our language of only 40,000 years seems wise. can throw. in that
He goes on to detail that researchers have discovered that humans make decisions emotionally and the decision is activated in the old brain, a brain that doesn’t even understand words. The book goes on to provide some useful advice.
However, many ideas introduced by neuromarketing are certainly nothing new. The idea of appealing to emotion is thousands of years old. It was first documented by Aristotle in his magisterial work The Rhetoric, known as the rhetorical triangle. Logos, argue by means of logic. Ethos, argue through the use of character. Finally, pathos, arguing using the power of emotion. Aristotle himself, a logician, still agreed that an argument is rarely won by logic alone, but an argument can often be won primarily through the use of emotion.
That is why a speech that uses a story is so much more powerful than one that only has statistics. People become captivated by a story, they become emotionally attached. They see it unfold in their mind, they become protagonists, and if told right, they come to the same conclusion as the statistics, except now they are emotionally invested and ready to act.
The use of emotion is something we find throughout our history. One of the best cases would be that of the “7 deadly sins”. Perhaps not everyone would have objectively known that they must appeal to emotions to persuade and most may have repeated what seemed to work. But if Aristotle wrote about this more than 2,000 years ago, it’s certainly nothing new.
However, what neuromarketing can provide is a much more detailed analysis. Each company was able to discover the emotional drivers of their customers. Currently, when we create a customer profile, we consider your demographics, your age, job, income, title, type of employment, etc. But none of that tells us your purchase triggers. What if we knew in which emotional states they are most likely to buy? All emotions are strong, but have you noticed how some people are laid back, while others worry so much? How easy would it be to panic sell a product to someone if this person was naturally caring and relevant to something she was stressed about? It’s unethical, but the potential is there. Ditto for selling the person laid back, selling a lifestyle that matches their attitudes, or a way to start a business that could do both. When neuromarketing begins to reveal to us our innermost emotions and how they respond to particular things, that is when it will become powerful because we will learn what to avoid and what to use. We could learn which colors trigger certain emotions for the brand. What are the best words to close a sale. And what is it that makes certain news stories go viral? What is the most powerful emotion? Depending on the type of company you have, which emotion should you target the most? What emotions lead to the highest sales? There are many questions that neuromarketing research will hopefully answer, which can give us all a greater understanding of our brands, customers, and ourselves in the future.
To your success.
References:
Bhavanani, A. (2009) https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/rishiculture/conversations/topics/2930
Dooley, R. (2014) http://www.neurosciencemarketing.com/blog/articles/what-is-neuromarketing.htm
Renvoise, P. (2012) Neuromarketing.