Neuromarketing, cocaine and sports cars

We have learned in marketing the importance of understanding the needs and wants of the customers first in order to satisfy them.

To understand the needs and wants, we have to contact customers, visit them and ask some questions or else can distribute questionnaires for customers as well as potential customers. Again we could not 100% sure that as true idea as some respondents always lead to bias situation in marketing research.

Many people in research have argued on this and many programmes have been prepared to reduce this.

Once I wanted to do a survey on buyer perception of local products most of the people love. In interviews also they reiterated that they do want to buy Sri Lankan products. Some went further and said that even it was more than market price they were willing to buy the products.

That was the conclusion of the survey and it was done on high involvement products like consumer durables. But what was the reality? Sri Lankan customers are not willing to buy some local washing machines even though the price is 30-40% less than the normal price. So marketing research sometimes brings you to paradox situations!

Neuromarketing

But now there is no need to interview customers and visit them. You have neuromarketing! No need for researchers to ask us what we think or try to decipher our intentions from our actions. They’ll be able to monitor what we think directly – at the cellular level.

That’s good news for companies. Not only will they be able to spend their marketing budgets more efficiently, but they’ll be able to wield more influence over the purchases we make.

What is neuromarketing? Neuromarketing is an applied extension of neuroscience. The application of brain-scan technology to marketing, especially the use of fMRI, gave rise to the term.

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging or functional MRI (fMRI) is a type of specialised MRI scan used to measure the hemodynamic response (change in blood flow) related to neural activity in the brain or spinal cord of humans or other animals.

This can be considered as recently developed forms of neuroimaging. Since the early 1990s, fMRI has come to dictate the brain mapping field due to its relatively low invasiveness, absence of radiation exposure, and relatively wide availability. It might soon be time to redefine MRI machines as “market research imaging” devices.

At Harvard’s McLean Hospital, six male whiskey drinkers, ages 25 to 34, lined up to have their brains scanned for Arnold Worldwide. The Boston-based ad shop was using fMRI to measure the emotional power of various images, including college kids drinking cocktails on spring break, 20-somethings with flasks around a campfire and older guys at a swanky bar.

According to Baysie Wightman, Head of Arnold’s new, science-focused Human Nature Dept, “the scan help give us empirical evidence of the emotion of decision-making”. The results will help shape the 2007 ad campaign for client Brown-Forman (BF.B), which owns Jack Daniels.

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Neuromarketing, cocaine and sports cars

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‘Known centres’

As a result, neuromarketing studies have increasingly pointed to various ‘known centres’ in the brain. Yet knowledge about these so called ‘known centres’ is often sketchy and the claims about their function are often reasoned speculation rather than known fact.

As an example, a study by Knutson et al published in late 2007 pointed to the insula as an area that registers price pain. People given $ 20 to spend were shown products in a scanner that they could choose to buy.

One part of the brain was activated when they saw brands they liked but then the higher the brand’s price, the more it triggered activity in another part of their brain, the insula. The study concluded that this is a centre that registers price-pain.

Within weeks however, a broader neuroscience study discovered that addicted smokers who suffered damage to this area (from car accidents, etc.) were suddenly able to give up their long standing addiction to smoking.

It emerged that this part of the brain, the insula, relates somehow to our ability to exercise control over addictive behaviours. This is very interesting for Sri Lankans as the authorities to control smoking by using some strategies related to these findings.

Cars

DaimlerChrysler, Ford of Europe and other automakers are using medical research tools to probe the consumer brain to better sell cars. In Germany, the DaimlerChrysler Research Centre has done research with Ulm University Clinic and investigated the way which consumers evaluate car exteriors.

In the Ulm study, 12 men who were highly interested in cars were placed in an MRI scanner, a medical device doctors normally use to look for tumours. Researchers showed the volunteers a total of 66 pictures of sports cars, sedans and small cars and asked them to rate the cars on attractiveness.

The men said sports cars were significantly more attractive than sedans or small cars, which was no surprise. But what interested researchers was that the part of the brain associated with rewards was more active when the participants viewed a sports car than when they saw images of sedans and small cars.

The two major parts of the brain showing increased activity when screening a sports car are the right ventral striatum and the right fusiform gyrus. The first is the reward centre of the brain, which is also activated by natural stimulants such as sex, chocolate and cocaine. The second area is associated with recognising faces and having expert knowledge about something, such as cars.

Criticisms

But there are some criticisms for neuromarketing also. Some consumer advocate organisations have criticised neuromarketing’s potentially invasive technology. Jeff Chester, the Executive Director of the Centre for Digital Democracy, claims that neuromarketing is “having an effect on individuals that individuals are not informed about”.

Marketing is all about understanding customer needs and wants and satisfying them. But in order to understand the needs and wants of the customer, if you engage in any sort of investigation without getting the consent of the customer, it can be questionable.

Even electronic equipments like fMRI and their consequences for human brain can be questioned again. But some have defended this and argued that neuromarketing amounts to “neuroscience tools being used to test marketing efforts” – this take suggests that neuroscientists should cherish the golden opportunity to use marketing and consumer actions to better understand the human mind.

(The writer is a Chartered Marketer and Consultant, Senior Lecturer in Marketing – Open University of Sri Lanka and a certified trainer for tutors and mentors in online learning. He holds an MBA (Colombo), B. Sc Mkt. (Special) (SJP), MCIM, Dip in MKT (UK), MSLIM, MAAT and Dip in CMA, Chartered Intermediate from ICASL.)



References

http://www.sutherlandsurvey.com/Column_pages/Neuromarketing_whats_it_all_about.htm

http://www.neurosciencemarketing.com/blog/articles/neuromarketing-in-the-news.htm

http://www.gizmag.com/go/7114/

http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040112/SUB/401120876&template=printart