Premature neuromarketing

August 11, 2010  |  by Kent Stones

“We’ve got to think outside of the box!” This is a common exclamation, heard almost every time a marketing department faces the wrath of an executive not happy with the company’s performance. We’ve all been there before. You’ve held lots of focus groups, conducted more than enough surveys about what people want and employed sophisticated data-mining algorithms against Web use data. Yet the big new idea or solution eludes you. Is the problem simply that you haven’t analyzed the data well enough? Perhaps, but it’s more likely because you’re using research tools and methods that simply aren’t capable of uncovering the deeper influences that will help you develop a new perspective.

Neuromarketing is an increasingly popular approach with great promise in helping us overcome this challenge. It’s not just theory. There are an increasing number of case studies that demonstrate the discovery methods typically used in neuromarketing can uncover new insights that lead to a new way of thinking. I’m a proponent of the method—but only when used in the right context. I see far too many marketers anxious to jettison more traditional research methods and commission a neuroscience-based study without putting the proper amount of consideration into the problem they are trying to solve or truly gauging their depth of insight about the product or service. More often than not, a mix of methods and analyses is required to provide the fodder necessary to discover new solutions. Neuromarketing research techniques are effective only when used at the proper time.

What is Neuromarketing?
Neuromarketing, a term attributed to marketing research professor Ale Smidts, describes an approach to marketing that uses neuroscience, psychology and/or other cognitive-based techniques to gauge human response to stimuli. Some of these techniques include eye-tracking, heart-rate monitoring, galvonic skin response and functional magnetic resonance imaging, to name a few. The intent is to uncover responses that influence behavior but are not obvious because they are not easily articulated by or conscious to the consumer. For example, does the use of attractive women in a beer commercial stimulate men in a way that encourages them to prefer that beer?

In a published study in the 2004 publication of Neuron¹, people had their brains scanned while undergoing a choice study similar to the “Pepsi Challenge.” In a blind taste test, half the subjects indicated they preferred Pepsi over another product, which correlated with brain activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (associated with feelings of reward). If consumers make logical choices based on physiologically based preference, Pepsi’s market share should lie somewhere in the same vicinity. But it didn’t. Why? An additional element of the study considered the role of brand cues. The researchers discovered that when brand names were introduced, participants used a different part of the brain—an area more associated with memory and association. The research uncovered that even when consumers preferred a product’s taste in a blind taste test, the product they indicated they would purchase was based on memories and experience.

Neuroscience is Often Introduced Too Early in the Design Process
This seminal study demonstrated neuroscience-based research techniques have tremendous potential to facilitate deep and meaningful insights for a brand, particularly for brands in mature or fiercely competitive markets. However, as with any research approach, the usefulness and applicability of the results are directly related to the depth of understanding in the marketing problem being addressed. All too often, the analytical techniques used in neuromarketing are introduced too early to exploit their full potential. The researchers don’t know to incorporate important perspectives or knowledge that would influence what they measure. Quite simply, they don’t know what they don’t know.

Early in the design stage, other analytical methods, such as ethnography or metaphor elicitation, usually do a better job of uncovering new perspectives than will neuroscience-based approaches. They tend to cast a wider net in their data collection and allow the design team to be exposed to a far more divergent set of insights—necessary for new pattern recognition. For example, in a recent project for a local art center, it was far more valuable for our design team to understand the cultural and social contexts of art before designing the brand’s essence. It led to consideration of elements of the building’s architecture, the instinctual need every human has to create and the emotional outcome of creating. If we had begun by using neuroscience-based method and had not uncovered these contexts, where would the team have started in designing a stimuli for consumers to respond to? It would have been guessing, and while the study would have provided results, we wouldn’t know if they were truly reflective of something that could evoke the strong response we needed. So we used ethnographic methods that would expand the box in which we thought, which led to powerful thematics upon which to design. Following this work, neuroscience or other cognitively based methods would then be very helpful, because we would already understand the context around the stimuli upon which the brain is reacting.

A Useful Framework
I recently ran across a perspective that I think describes a thoughtful framework we should consider if we are designing research to uncover powerful insights. This philosophy is espoused by Margaret King and Jamie O’Boyle of Cultural Studies and Analysis:

• Our senses detect sensation

• Our brain translates sensation into perception

• Perception is shaped by culture and context

• Culture is a complex, adaptive system

• Context is a bordered system

• All systems can be decoded, modeled, explained and understood

This philosophy is useful because it outlines all the different influences on decision-making that must be examined to truly design products and services consumers will demand. Neuroscience-based methods can be tools that are valuable in the first two elements of this perspective (note these are not presented in the order of execution). But there is so much more to understand than just how our brains react to stimuli. What stimuli should even be developed in the first place?

So when thinking through a marketing problem, step back at some point and consider the other elements of this entire framework. Assess whether you have a perspective about each different piece of the puzzle and then carefully choose tools and methods that will provide the most useful insights. Avoid using the latest and greatest method, no matter how scientific or technologically advanced it may seem to be, without considering what you are really trying to understand. If you do, your team will have a much better chance of uncovering that powerful insight that ultimately leads to the idea that will have a shopper selecting your product or service.

1. http://tinyurl.com/ydweono