Neuromarketing the new concept of buying button
Neuromarketing – marketing insights from neuroimaging research
Decision without reason?
Imagine for a moment that you are in your local liquor store, shopping for a bottle of wine. You have a delicious meal planned for the evening, and a good bottle of red will add the final touch. Imagine that your gaze falls on two bottles, side by side on the shelf. One French, and one German. The bottles are a similar price, a similar style, and to all intents and purposes, they appear to be of similar quality. You feel that either of these will meet your needs, but how do you choose? Imagine that as you ponder your choice, the sound of a very French piano-accordion melody gently floats through the store. Will it affect your choice? And if so, will you be aware that your choice has been swayed?
Neuromarketing shopping around
Recently, a group of researchers examined exactly this question, and found striking results. Wine shoppers were roughly three times more likely to purchase wine of the same nationality as background music. Striking enough, but critically, only one of forty-four shoppers interviewed suggested that the background music influenced their purchase decision, and over three-quarters specifically said that the background music did not affect their choice of wine! How could they have been so out of touch with the influences on their behaviour?
Mounting evidence suggests that the wine shoppers are not alone. Indeed, there is increasing evidence from psychology and neurosciences research to suggest that very few of us are aware of some of the main determinants of our decisions. We fancy ourselves as rational decision-makers, able to weigh up the factors relevant to our decisions to arrive at reasoned choices. However, it appears that much of our decision-making is driven by thought processes that occur ‘below-the-surface’. Indeed, increasing evidence suggests that much of our decision-making occurs via mechanisms that are inaccessible to our more rational and conscious thought processes.
Neuromarketing evidence
This mounting evidence provides a major challenge for marketing researchers and the industries they supply with consumer insights. Consumers provide valuable insights to organisations about their attitudes and likely behaviour towards products, services and ideas. Communication industries, in particular, are heavily reliant on consumers’ insights to inform the design of marketing communications, such as television advertisements. There is ample data to suggest that such research can provide valuable insights to organisations, but in the light of mounting evidence, we must seriously question the emphasis we place on consumers’ explicit thoughts regarding their choices. |
