By now everyone understands the value of market research, especially with regard to asking buyers how and why they do the things they do.
But there’s a problem.
People’s stated beliefs and behavior don’t always align with their actual behavior at the end of the day. People don’t always know, exactly, why they do what they do at the end of the day. They may not understand why they feel the way they feel.
Human decision-making is messy, and not inherently logical or intuitive. So in an effort to get more accurate feedback, marketers are skipping the conversation altogether—and looking directly at buyer brains.
Don’t ask me, I’m just the buyer.
The discipline of neuromarketing leverages neuroscientists, multi-disciplinary specialists in the brain and nervous system, to help understand how marketing and experiential stimulus affects buyer brains. Specifically, they use tools such as functional Magnetic Resonance Machines (MRI), electroencephalograms which measure the brain’s electrical activity, and biometrics to understand how buyers truly feel about a brand experience and predict their behavior more accurately.
Neuromarketing as a focused, scaled-up discipline has been around in a scalable way since the early 2000s, when scientists began being concerned about the media’s impact on the brain. The term was coined by Dutch organizational theorist Ale Smidts. Coca Cola first put it to the test in 2004 in an effort to remove bias from taste tests, and Campbell’s used it in 2006 to decide whether or not they should redesign its cans. And today, with advances in both technology and practice, the origins of consumer attitudes and decision-making are running out of places to hide.
Want your marketing to hit buyers right in the feels? Contact Unleaded.
QUICK FACTS
20% More Hollywood
According to a recent article in the Harvard Business Review, a team at Northwestern predicted how successful specific movies would be at a rate of 20 percent more accurate than traditional methods. Their technique? Hooking viewers up to EEG equipment while they watched trailers.
70% = 200%
According to a recent article in the MarTech Advisor, 70 percent of customers who feel emotionally connected to a brand spend twice as much on purchases—and over 80 percent of this group will also recommend their preferred brands.
Sleep Nudging
Parents have long since attempted to educate sleeping babies to give them a cognitive advantage early on. But as it turns out, humans are actually susceptible to influence during certain phases of sleep. This dream was brought to you by Carl’s Jr.