A summary of the emerging techniques of neuroscience and consumer neuromarketing.

1. Consumer Neuromarketing
October 2012
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2. Introduction
 Contained in this pack is a summary of insights, approaches and
applications of neuroscience as it relates to consumer
psychology, advertising and decision making.
 Notes and references are all attributed to a an executive training course
at Swinburne University – where I was lectured by the leading thinkers in
this developing field of marketing, psychology and cognitive
understanding.
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3. How big is our subconscious?
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4. The Implicit Mind
 Our subconscious;
– is much larger than our conscious brain
– Is always on
– Keeps us alive
– Makes and influences decisions
– Processes far more information than we are aware of and than our conscious
mind can interpret
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5. What is Neuroscience / Neuromarketing?
 Neuroscience is a discipline of psychology that seeks to observe peoples
unconscious responses to communication. It asserts that traditional
marketing research generally ignores and inaccurately reports implicit
cognition and emotional triggers.
 The methods employed by neuroscientists (marketers) to measure these
implicit responses are designed to bypass the subjects symbolic response
(to words and text, and images) by measuring what happens inside the
brain.
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6. Neuromarketing taps into the subconscious
 Because when asked...
People lie
They don’t think what they say they think
They don’t tell you actually how they feel
They do not do what they say they do
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7. When would you use neuromarketing?
 Neuromarketing techniques are potentially expensive and also complex to
set up – as such we should assess the appropriateness of application
bearing in mind the following criteria
– Does an existing psychological understanding or assumption exist to back your findings?
– Will it tell you something new, something significant other research cannot tell you?
– Is the result likely to be scalable?
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8. How is it done?
 There are numerous techniques each with pros and cons
Physiological techniques Brain imaging and mapping techniques
•Skin conductance (measures changes in the •fMRI (Magnetic resonance scanning), same
chemical and electronic balance of or skin) scanners as used for MRI
•Heart rate (measures changes in hear rate due to •EEG (Electro fields captured with electrodes on
stimulus) subjects head)
•Facial coding (measures facial expressions for •MEG (magnetic fields captured via machine)
change) •Online neuro response tests (modelled on MRI
•Eye Tracking (measures what we look at) learnings
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9. The Neuromarketing toolkit
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10. How does it work?
 Neuromarketing understands that when
stimulated different parts of the brain are
activated.
 By understanding and observing these
responses using MRI and EEG, and
analysing the timing and response of our
brains in relation to specific stimulus
researchers can determine – what we
really think.
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11. The thing is
 When comparing “explicit” and
“Implicit” research responses to real
life outcomes - Implicit wins almost
every time – indicating its more
accurate measure of what people
really feel and do.
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12. What can neuroscience tell us?
Measure levels of Memory
engagement & • How much and what type
attention of memory stimulus is
being achieved
• What we are responding to
Attract or detract Preference
• What elements of the • Which brands, themes or
stimulus create attract and elements our subconscious
detract responses prefers
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13. Yes, your unconscious mind might think differently
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14. The subconscious is more powerful than we think?
 We tend to believe this is the way we make decisions
Think Feel Choose
 The reality is potentially more like this...we post rationalise
Feel Choose Think
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15. Don’t believe me?
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16. It’s probably not even that simple...
The (FCB) strategy matrix suggests that
advertising works differently
depending on the product category.
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17. Some use-cases for applied neuromarketing
Pre product development testing Ad effectiveness studies Media context assessment
• Users shown a range of products • Measure response to creative – • Determine what assets and
even packing and judge the best identify iconic programming best compliments
triggering various centres of the triggers, characters, music choice the receptivity and mindset of the
brain; and position of brand and key consumer (attention and recall can
reward, craving, hunger, attraction message in the ad be measured)
/ detraction
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18. MTV case study
 Neuro studies have been done to understand the efficacy of a Station
(MTV – wanted to show advertisers that they still can brand advertisers
high levels of brand awards and association) – Channel 7 about to start to
do this.
 Undertaking this study they were able to compare:
Attention, Understanding, and Memory for various sectors of adverts for
“congruent” and “incongruent” program types – identifying what
context, flow and type of content achieved the highest overall
performance for the ads
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19. Some things we can use
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20. Personality – a further dimension to consumer
understanding
 Neuromarketing techniques offer three ways to break down personality
– Emotional intelligence
– Low EI – like celebrities, simpler messages, less open, more selfish
– High EI - generally more likely to be female, like humour, more open, community
minded, respond better to complex creative messages
– Test your own EIQ here
– Interactivity
– Highest engagement from “novelty seeking behaviour” typology – these
consumers are more likely to interact – click an ad – hid “red button on a FOXTEL
remote
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21. Personality – 4 styles of thinking & impact on decisions
Thinking Imaginative Physical Feeling
• Interested in analysing • Display heightened sense of awareness of the • Prefer physical realism, with acute powers of • Higher concern for the human emotional and
information, maintaining objectivity in unconscious perception. material observation and feeling aspects, experiential sources of
decision making, using well founded • Have stronger tendency to visualise, to understanding, memory for information, a need for affiliation, status
intellectual principles to guide thinking construct and manipulate images, are more details, practical, down to earth social respect and achievement.
process. inclined to value • Enjoyment of physical • Understanding emotions and able to
• Value justice and fairness, tend to use critical idealism, reflection, creativity, imagination. pleasures, achievements and comforts. transform and create new
and deliberate thinking, which can appear • Tolerance for the unusual and emotions, preference to evaluate products in
emotionless or blunt and less concerned for unconventional process of decision making. terms of emotional benefits and social
feelings. symbolism

22. 10 behavioural shortcuts (for marketers) . How many do
you see at play?
 Anchoring – 1st impressions act as anchors and influence future decisions – nail your 1st impressions
 Authority – Social conventions instilled in us make us comply with experts – Dentists in Colgate ads?
 Framing – Framing a question differently illicit a different response – Is the cup half full or empty?
 Relativity – We make choices relatively not absolutely link forward to 12:34
 Loss aversion – We value more what we already have
 Reciprocity – We innately expect something from those we give something to
 Status Quo bias – People tend to stick with the way things are
 Price perceptions – Price creates expectations of value
 Social proofing - We instinctively follow what other people do. Herd mentality
 Temptation – In a state of arousal we tend to make decisions we would not already
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23. How media are using Neuro
 Optimising sponsorships
– Program selection has powerful influence on ad effectiveness. Neuro can be measured for an ad across a
range of program formats and types to see where the best attention and memory triggers are achieved.
– Delving a little deeper, the various components of the TV sponsorship for example can be pulled apart to
understand what elements are most effective for the sponsoring brand (both for overall memory and specific
detail memory) i.e a billboard vs a brand integration vs product shot – and when they were placed in the
program
 Iconic triggers
– Are the key scenes, visual cues, images or brand assets that trigger greater levels of brain activity. Neuro is
used for integrated creative campaigns to discover what these are - so they can be used in other media
formats and campaign assets.
 Neurostate matching
– Our brain has 2 parallel processing states;
– Rational which process the micro, facts and details, the offer.
– Global which processes the big picture, the story line and main themes
– If you find a fit between the Neuro state of your commercial and programming – then uplift can be achieved
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24. Summing up
 Neuromarketing is a growing area of study and advertising research
 Results related to understanding the consumers implicit feelings and
preferences support that we may in fact make decisions differently than
we believe we do
 Neuromarketing application needs to be considered from a scientific and
commercial stand point; i.e it needs to make sense from both sides before
being deployed
 Ethics are a further important consideration, and are not to be overlooked
or undervalued
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