The popularity and demand for up-and-coming content creators is rapidly increasing in our media-dependent world. Similarly, our society’s determination to understand how and why our brains react to certain experiences, ads, packaging, and pricing benefits sales by allowing neuromarketers to target specific audiences for their benefit. Neuromarketing, which utilizes neuroscience to improve marketing efficacy, markets products to customers based on consumer knowledge, resulting in amplified purchase decisions.
How Are Purchases Predicted?
In 2007, scientists from Stanford University, MIT Sloan School of Management, and Carnegie Mellon University used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electroencephalograms (EEG) to study shoppers’ brain activity, finding that they could predict whether or not an individual will purchase a product. The latter studies brain-cell activity by tracking changes in neural circuits, which are clusters of neurons that receive electrochemical information and are responsible for an organism’s actions; if neural circuits remained dark while considering the purchase of a product, the product was less likely to be purchased, and if neural circuits lit up, the product was more likely to be purchased.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging, however, uses strong magnetic fields to track changes in blood flow across the brain. Compared to EEG, fMRI can pinpoint where activity changes, but it might miss fleeting and important neural incidents. Similarly, physiological proxies of brain activity are measured to determine purchase probability including, but not limited to, eye fixation, arousal (tracked through pupil-dilation), and facial expressions are tracked.
How Neuromarketers Use Your Brain Against Your Wallet
Ever wondered why a baby in a Super Bowl commercial made you feel oddly compelled to know more about the advertised product? Neuromarketers often use sympathy to compel viewers to purchase or at least remember a certain product, leveraging consumers to click the “add to cart” button more impulsively.
Similarly, neuromarketers use strategies like eliminating decision paralysis, leveraging loss aversion (stating there is low stock of a product, for example), and using more inviting colors and website designs to draw consumers in, ultimately resulting in a higher probability of purchase.
Understanding the psychology of color, for example, allows advertisers to understand what emotion is generated by a certain color, which helps in deciding what color to use for what type of ad. The color yellow, for example, typically generates anxiousness, so it is avoided by many company advertisements.
Additionally, in-person shopping adds another dimension to neuromarketing, as neuromarketers can tease consumers audibly and through olfaction. Neuromarketers often play music that aligns with the product’s theme (calm music with bath products, for example) to stimulate similar emotions to what the product should markedly generate. Similarly, olfaction exposure generates emotions that should resonate with consumers; for example, marketers often use vanilla scents in stores, for the aroma somehow is associated with mothers’ milk.
Ultimately, neuromarketing is becoming more and more popular amongst marketers, for understanding how and why the brain decides to act upon certain thoughts and emotions fascinates people. As neuroscience understanding continues to develop, neuromarketing will become even greater of an asset for business success, making it an up and coming aspired profession for lovers of cognition and creative marketing.
References
- Cherry, K. (2022, November 29). Can color affect your mood and behavior?. Verywell Mind. https://www.verywellmind.com/color-psychology-2795824.
- DC, R. (2023, June 15). 9 powerful ways you can use neuromarketing to grow your business. Crowdspring Blog. https://www.crowdspring.com/blog/neuromarketing-examples/.
- Harrell, E. (2019, January 23). Neuromarketing: What you need to know. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2019/01/neuromarketing-what-you-need-to-know#:~:text=%E2%80%9CNeuromarketing%E2%80%9D%20loosely%20refers%20to%20the,pricing%2C%20and%20other%20marketing%20areas.
- How to properly use scents to trigger consumer behavior. Air Scent International. (2017, August 12). https://www.airscent.com/using-scents-to-trigger-consumers/.
- Sanz, E. (2022, December 21). Five Neuromarketing Strategies That Make You Buy. Exploring Your Mind. https://exploringyourmind.com/neuromarketing-strategies-that-make-you-buy/.
- Touhami, O. (2010, October 8). Neuromarketing: Where Marketing and Neuroscience Meet. Neuromarketing: Where Neuroscience and Marketing Meet. https://academicjournals.org/journal/AJBM/article-full-text-pdf/7CEC9BF18305.
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