Marketing to our Brains

October 29, 2007

The implications of our growing knowledge of the processes of the brain continue to unfold.

It should be no surprise that marketers have been following along as neuroscientists have moved in on ever clearer understanding of just what happens on the neuro level when we make our choices. After all, they are in business to influence those choices.

So listen to this:

Neuromarketing uses state-of-the-art technologies such as functional magnetic resonance
imaging (fMRI), magneto-encephalography, and more conventional electroencephalograms
(EEGs) to observe which areas of the brain “light up” when test subjects view, hear, or
even smell products or promos. The activity of regions such as the nucleus accumbens,
insula, and mesial prefrontal cortex give researchers insight into how consumers respond
to specific stimuli.

“Emotions cannot necessarily be accurately described,” says Gemma Calvert, head of the
Multisensory Research Group at Britain’s University of Bath and director of
neuromarketing consultancy Neurosense in Oxford, England. Using brain scans, she says,
“We can see the discrepancy between what you say and what your brain says, and reduce
the margin of error.”

That’s what attracted Viacom Brand Solutions to experiment with neuromarketing. The
London-based Viacom (VIA) subsidiary, which sells ads on the entertainment giant’s
channels including MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon, Paramount Comedy, and E! Channel in Great
Britain and Ireland, engaged Neurosense to measure the response of 18- to 30-year- old
viewers to ads interspersed into episodes of cartoon comedy South Park. The two dozen
subjects each spent an hour inside an fMRI scanner watching four programs while their
brain activity was measured. The Importance of Placement

The result? Advertisements for popular “alcopop” vodka beverage WKD from Torquay,
England-based Beverage Brands elicited vigorous brain responses, while ads for the Red
Cross and reliable old Tetley tea produced much less reaction. The takeaway, says
Calvert, is that ads “congruent” with their environment outperform those that are
“incongruent.”

Are we troubled? The knack in the next generation is going to lie in knowing how to be troubled without simply emulating Ned Ludd. We need a much more vigorous and varied dialogue on how emerging technologies are shaping our futuren that does not resolve each time into a choice between “shut it down” and “it’s wonderful” (with a possible third – fatalistic – choice becoming more evident: “we can’t stop it so what’s the point in this conversation?”). We need neither Luddism nor, worse still, fatalism, but an engagement in these technologies and their application that comports with the values of our society and its democratic accountability. What does that mean for neuromarketing? A “health warning” on the ads so we know they have been neuro-honed? Proscription on the use of these techniques in political ads? And what about that perennially dire topic of ads directed at kids?