In the age of hyper-solicited advertising, brands no longer know how to capture consumers' attention. On average, consumers see 1,200 advertisements a day! How can a brand stand out from the crowd? By practising neuromarketing. In other words, by applying cognitive neuroscience to marketing. A vector of emotions, neuromarketing acts unconsciously on the brain to trigger the act of buying. What exactly is this concept? How useful is it? Find out how neuroscience can help marketers improve their campaigns, by following these 4 steps.
The application of neuroscience to marketing and communication is not new. It began to attract interest in the 2000s, with the work of American neuroscientist Professor Read Montague. The experiment involved tasting Pepsi and Coca-Cola. The result: while 67 % of individuals said they preferred Pepsi in the blind test, 75 % chose Coca-Cola when they tasted the drink with knowledge of the brand! This research has shown that consumers do not choose products rationally, and that they are strongly influenced by brand image. Hence the need for companies to invest in neuromarketing to refine their commercial strategies.
Understanding the "unconscious" of consumers
The aim: to offer the most relevant products possible within a market. This involves studying the purchasing decisions of consumers ˗ less rational than they think, as we have seen. In other words, emotions play a decisive role in the purchasing process. Hence the need to go beyond the measurements made by traditional research methods.
These methods generally simply question the consumer. The declaration is in fact often subjective and biased. Consumer decision-making, recall, and preference typically arise from unconscious or inexpressible processes during questionnaires. For example, focus groups do not identify these emotional manifestations.
By applying neuroscience to marketing, you refine the information obtained by traditional marketing. And you get a finer understanding of your customers' behavior.
Neuromarketing: using dedicated tools
©Benoit Rochon
Neuromarketing involves analysing the reactions of the human brain to different types of visual stimuli when making a purchase. Various tools are used to decipher the emotions and behaviour of consumers. At the top of the list are magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques. These enable us to observe the brain activity of consumers when they are subjected to different stimuli. These techniques can be used to analyse the reactions triggered by an advertisement in order to find ways of making it more attractive.
Another technique used is eye-tracking, to better understand the subject's attention span. In practical terms, this involves measuring the movement of a consumer's eyes. This makes it possible to analyse the paths travelled by the eye on a specific medium (website, packaging, advertising campaign, etc.) and to determine the areas that are looked at the most: number of glances, time, reading direction, order of eye movement, etc. Netflix, for example, uses eye-tracking to optimise navigation on its application.
Third very popular tool, particularly by large groups like L'Oréal, is EEG (electroencephalography). Using electrodes connected and attached to the scalp, this tool measures the electrical waves generated by the brain. The objective: to see in real time how the brain reacts emotionally to a given experience (watching an advertisement or browsing an e-commerce site, for example).
Also read: After the IoT, the IoB? We tell you all about the Internet of Behavior
Predicting consumer behavior
Thanks to these different tools, you obtain precise data to better understand what your target is looking for, better understand them and, consequently, improve their experience. So much information that will help you influence their behavior and decision-making. For example, by giving him good recommendations during an advertising campaign. Or by adapting the ergonomics of an e-commerce site to your preferences.
In the end, you increase your chances of capturing the attention of your target audience. What's more, by being more precise in what you do, you can optimise your actions (campaigns, content creation, etc.) and become more effective. At the same time as rationalising your investments. Neuromarketing can be applied in both the physical and digital worlds.
Know reason and keep
Thanks to neuromarketing, you can target the cerebral levers of the desire to buy. But that doesn't mean that your "commercial" objective will be achieved. In other words, it's not necessarily the most memorable ad that's the most effective. There are, of course, other parameters that come into play, such as the consumer's buying environment.
In addition, neuromarketing directly addresses the subconscious of consumers for commercial purposes. This raises the question of consent and the right to privacy. Hence the introduction of safeguards by certain countries, such as Chile, which is considering the creation of "neuro-rights". These would be designed to protect citizens against the possible intrusion of unwanted information and solicitations into their brains.
The important thing to remember is that the application of neuroscience to marketing allows for a more detailed and predictive understanding of customer behavior. And thus goes beyond the framework of traditional marketing. Therefore, neuromarketing helps marketers improve their campaigns through the implementation of dedicated tools such as MRI or eye-tracking. Result: optimized actions to gain efficiency. You have to know how to maintain reason, because neuromarketing does not always work.
