Brain Scans May Become Marketing Tool of the Future

Using advanced tools to see the human brain at work, a new generation of marketing experts may be able to test a product's appeal while it is still being designed, according to a new analysis by a couple of researchers.

So-called "micromarketing” takes the tools of modern brain science, such the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and applies them to the somewhat abstract likes and dislikes of customer decision-making.

Although this raises the specter of marketers being able to read people's minds (more than they already do), neuromarketing may prove to be an affordable way for marketers to gather information that was previously unobtainable, or that consumers themselves may not even be fully aware of, said Dr. Dan Ariely, a professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University (Durham, NC, USA).

In a perspective piece appearing online March 2010 in the journal Nature Reviews Neuroscience, Dr. Ariely and Dr. Gregory S. Berns of Emory University's (Atlanta, GA, USA) departments of psychiatry, economics, and neuropolicy, offer tips on what to look for when hiring a neuromarketing firm, and what ethical considerations there might be for the new field. They also point to some words of caution in interpreting such data to form marketing decisions.

Neuromarketing may never be inexpensive enough to replace focus groups and other methods used to assess existing products and advertising, but it could have real potential in assessing the conscious and unconscious reactions of consumers in the design phase of such varied products as "food, entertainment, buildings, and political candidates,” Dr. Ariely stated.

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Duke University
Emory University