Last Updated on August 14, 2022
Contents
Why neuromarketing is becoming important?
Nowadays, it is common for almost everyone to go out and shop for happiness. We’re also constantly bombarded with advertising to make us consume more stuff or make us feel like we’re behind. Marketing is an important thing in the consumerism world we are living in.
Of course, we already know some of the stuff of marketing, like placing basic and commonly bought items at the end of a store so that customers have to walk throughout the whole place and therefore be exposed to other products to get to the ones they need.
That’s why milk is usually placed in the back of the store. It’s a common item that most people “need” and so they’re gonna make you see as many items as possible before you get to what you “need”.
For instance, Costco sells rotisserie chicken at a loss to attract more customers to its stores. But it places the roasted chicken at the back of the store so that customers have to walk through the entire area to fetch it.
Cosco does this, so that customer has to walk through the entire area and be exposed to other Items. But it also repositions every item in the store regularly so that when customers return, they see new things that they might have missed last time.
Then there are “Buy 1 Get 1 free” offers which boost revenue and make people buy more stuff in exchange for very marginal discounts. Exposure and billboard ads also do some of the marketing heavy lifting. But you already knew that.
What you didn’t know is the other side of marketing, where our psyche is being deeply studied to understand patterns and predict customers’ choices well before the customer is aware of them, themselves.
As consumer preferences evolve it can be hard for companies to market to their audiences in the right way they use to. Hence to persuade people that they need more things, even things they didn’t know they needed, companies are studying brain activity to keep people buying more stuff. This is called neuromarketing.
It is a concept where neuroscience and marketing intersect ‘neuro-marketing’. It is a brain-based approach to help marketers directly measure customers underlying thoughts, feelings, and intentions.
The human attention span is only 8 seconds. It is estimated that takes 50 Milliseconds for a consumer to form an impression of a brand. Neurologists have taken the latest understanding of basic human cognition and applied it to marketing.
Neuromarketing is like “marketing on steroids”. It can be said that companies know us better than we know ourselves. According to a 2017 article by Forbe, 95% of purchasing decisions are directed by the subconscious mind.
How many times have you found yourself annoyed by an ad base on your recent online activity in the middle of something you were watching? Then you promised yourself that there was no way such an annoying interruption can convince you to buy something you don’t even want. And then you go and buy it anyway.
Well, if these things weren’t working, we wouldn’t see them being used. And, you might be surprised by just how meticulous this method can be sometimes. Emotions are also key in marketing.
Hence do you know that the smell of fast food is deliberately designed to produce an emotional reaction, the travel pictures that you see are deliberately chosen to arouse your desires, the bank slogan is specially created to play on your fears and your body cream has been developed to spark a desire from within your brain.
All this has been carefully calculated using the latest technology in neuroscience. These new sales methods have a specific technique to control your psychology and play with your desires. But what exactly is neuromarketing?
What is neuromarketing?
The term “neuromarketing” describes a new field that utilizes brain imaging and electroencephalogram tools to study consumer behavior. This process uses physiological and neural signals to create a picture of what a customer wants.
With the information, marketers can show you products or ads. By measuring brain activity, marketers can learn which aspects of the product or ad evoke the most responses. This information can then be used to improve future marketing strategies.
Neuromarketing study also helps marketers determine how to make their products more appealing to customers. The field is relatively new and a small number of studies have been published.
Most of these have confirmed what we already knew. But there is a lack of public information because companies conducting the studies are not always willing to share their findings.
The field is still undergoing research but it is a promising area of research. It’s an exciting time for marketers and scientists alike. This type of marketing will lead to higher profits for businesses and can give tailored experiences to the customer.
The global neuromarketing market size was estimated at USD 66.05 million in 2019 and is expected to reach USD 152.22 million by 2027.
While it may seem like an esoteric technique, neuromarketing is a legitimate way for companies to understand the way consumers behave and convert them into customers. You’ve probably wondered why a company would use this method.
Advantages of neuromarketing
As the term implies, neuromarketing uses consumer behavioral research and neuroscience to develop effective marketing strategies. Applied to the consumer, it gives marketers a deeper understanding of their customer’s needs, wants, and intentions. The field of consumer neuroscience can:
- help companies get a full image of their customers
- help marketers use psychological reactions to improve marketing campaign
- collect concrete and reliable data
- give companies a competitive edge
- help companies target specific customer
- uncover emotional and non-conscious responses to product
- be used to gain insight into product development
- measure fleeting reactions that people can’t remember
Consumer neuroscience gives companies a competitive edge. It also provides insights into the customer’s emotions and creates exceptional experiences.
Neuromarketing can align the values of consumers to that of the brand. It will also close the experience gap between consumers and companies. While its use is not new, it is still in its early stages.
The use of brain-imaging technology is a crucial component of neuromarketing. Its applications span the design of advertising materials, websites, and product styles. In the future, this technology will be widely used and can also be used to analyze customer behavior.
With neuromarketing, targeted ads know what you want and place-specific products in front of you so that you don’t have to do a lot of searching.
For instance, a study found that women weren’t buying their potato chips because of their guilt. Hence companies learned that changing the packaging for softer colors with pictures of the ingredients to make women feel less guilty about buying the chip.
As you can see, neuromarketing can be applied to many different aspects of a business. It’s not limited to advertising campaigns. It is used to better understand consumer preferences.
It can also be used in product design, point of sale display visibility, asset testing, and user experience. Another application of this strategy is in the field of publicity, where it can be used for radio, television, and digital campaigns.
Now in the increasingly digital world, we are living, we are always connected. Each time we connect to the internet, we generate some kind of data. Every day around 2.5 quintillion bytes of data is generated.
These data are processed by artificial intelligence to seek useful patterns and information. These data provide great insight into consumer behavior which is useful for targeted ads. Not just that, but AI can even compare the data to past information to provide personalized experiences.
Another way that neuromarketing is beneficial is by identifying which parts of books and movies evoke emotional responses in customers. This insight can be used to improve the content of website pages, social media posts, email marketing campaigns, and even images and videos.
Depending on the nature of your business, neuromarketing is a powerful tool for improving the effectiveness of your content. It allows you to adapt your existing content and create more effective future ones.
Using neuromarketing can also be a powerful tool for product development. Since companies already know customer preferences and have insight into their behavior, they can easily design products based on the information.
It can even be used by design companies. These companies can make better use of the information available in the field of neuroscience. This knowledge can be useful to their clients and can help them make better decisions.
Companies can use consumer neuroscience to enhance their campaigns. It is also used by public relations agencies and digital marketing consultancies to assess their proposals. The results can be used to improve the message of a new product or service.
Neuromarketing can also help companies create a brand identity that is unique and able to appeal to their target audience. It can also be used in the music industry, where fMRI can be used to analyze the brain activity of consumers to predict which song will be popular. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is used to measure brain activity by detecting changes associated with blood flow.
Future of neuromarketing
Neuromarketing is a promising field that is growing quickly. While it is still in its infancy, it is already a widely used tool in several industries. Many marketing agencies and companies are using it to test the efficacy of their ad campaigns and it’s proving to be valuable to them.
In 2025, consumer neuroscience will play a pivotal role in the experience economy. This concept emphasizes that a product or service is nothing without the experience it provides to customers.
Experience that is worth much more than the actual product and consumers are prepared to pay more for a great customer journey. To this end, many businesses are anticipating that their competitive advantage will lie in providing a superior and unique consumer experience.
Advancement in brain scanning technology is another aspect of neuromarketing that has many benefits for businesses. Eye trackers, electroencephalograms, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are among the technologies that will be implemented in the coming years.
Despite the numerous advantages of these new methods, many researchers and marketers are cautious about implementing them. Further, these techniques may cause confusion, which makes it harder for companies to develop effective campaigns.
It is also important to remember that it takes time and intellectual effort to develop new techniques. It’s also important to communicate how neuromarketing works to the public, as many customers are not comfortable with its current approach.
Neuromarketing is a great way to understand real consumer reactions and understand how they influence the decisions that businesses make. However, some researchers have noted that many of these methods aren’t fully developed yet and it’s important to understand how they work in the market.
In addition to the various benefits, consumer neuroscience can also help marketers understand why people make certain choices. A creative department at an advertising agency should harness the findings of neuromarketing research when developing a communication campaign.
While it is true that neuroscience is a very complex science, it can be applied to virtually any field. And while it is not as easy as it sounds, the future of neuromarketing is very exciting. It is likely to become the leading marketing technology in the next decade.
0 Comments