The Jury Is Still Out on Neuromarketing

Contrary to Joseph Turow beliefs, a professor of communication at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, neuromarketing “…will never enable marketing professionals to discover that Holy Grail of market research, a ‘buy button’ - some mythical region of the brain which need only be stimulated to compel consumers to purchase a product whether or not they actually want to do so! It will never be found because, of course, it does not exist!”1

Purchasing decisions are much more complex than what information can be taken from the technology available through EEG or iMRIs. “The idea is that somehow neuromarketing is going to be so much more powerful that, like zombies, we are all going to go out and buy soap,” Professor Wolpe says. “But that is just not realistic in terms of the way the brain works.”2 Sure, EEGs and iMRIs provide marketers information about the consumers responses to a particular add but it will not provide them the feedback they need to determine what it is that makes a consumer decide the way that they decide.

Firms such as EmSense, Sands Research, MindLab International and NeuroSense that specialize in neuromarketing techniques are riding this fad that in the short-term will provide a return. However, long-term the success of these firms will depend on their ability to diversify their product offerings.

1. http://www.drdavidlewis.co.uk/assets/NeuroMarket1.pdf
2. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/business/14stream.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=%20%E2%80%9CMaking%20Ads%20That%20Whisper%20to%20the%20Brain%E2%80%9D%20&st=Search