Neuromarketing: What's it all about?

At the same time in marketing we were playing with GSR (galvanic skin response) as a possible indicator of people’s emotional response to advertisements. Later, we engaged with new technology for eye tracking to reveal exactly where on the page (or a TV scene) people’s eyes were actually looking. And in the 1970’s Herbert Krugman5 and Flemming Hansen6 began to explore left and right brain processes using electroencephalograph (EEG) brain wave technology.

Each of these technologies was heralded at the time as a breakthrough. But none of them found widespread, lasting use in marketing - although some, like eye tracking, carved out a small niche.

First encounters

My first encounter with these technologies was at Coca-Cola in the late 1960’s when we played around with the pupilometer to see what it could tell us about differences in interest and attention to alternative advertising executions. (The answer, we concluded, was ‘not much that you couldn’t obtain by verbal report anyway’.)

Then in 1981, I came across brain wave monitoring using SST (Steady State Topography). Professor Richard Silberstein at Swinburne University7 was using SST in pure and clinical applications and was investigating its possible use in marketing. I was impressed, even though the technology clearly had a long way to go. Today, 25 years later, I am convinced SST can provide revealing insights in marketing with the benefit of a quarter century of accumulated experience in interpreting SST brain wave activity.

The Newer Technologies

The newer technologies, fMRI and MEG (magneto-encephalography) are the latest developments in gee whiz brain-scan technologies. Their potential to impress clients has made it attractive to transition their use across into marketing. But while their potential is undoubtedly exciting, published studies deploying them in marketing remain quite scarce. Probably no more than two dozen studies have been reported in the press and barely a handful of these have published any real details in peer reviewed journals.

Early Examples:

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