(NEW YORK, NY) — When you think of neuroscience you may think of how your brain allows you to function on a day to day basis. When studying neuroscience, research may be done on all factors of the brain including cellular, molecular, physiology, human behavior, and cognition.
Much research has been done on the way your brain coincides with the way you make marketing and branding decisions. The research is known as neuromarketing, which uses functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging to study how the brain responses to marketing stimuli. According to ‘ Neuromarketing’ by Roger Dooley, neuromarketing includes “the direct the use of brain imaging, scanning, or other brain activity measurement technology to measure a subject’s response to specific products, packaging, advertising, or other marketing elements.”
Already companies have included neuromarketing to create products, services, logos, and campaigns to appeal to a specific audience.
Now, what is the exact role your brain plays in consumer decision making?
Products & Packaging:
Since neuromarketing has been incorporated into brand development and marketing more and more companies have changed the way they develop and package products.
Packaging:
Before Frito-Lay incorporated neuroimaging their packaging included bold colors & shiny packaging. The company conducted customer studies based on color, text, and imagery, the customers were shown original packaging (shiny) and matte packaging. The responses were then recorded as positive, neutral, or negative. When they were shown the shiny packaging their responses were negative but didn’t show negative responses to the matte packaging, after this study Frito-Lay began to produce new matte packaging.
Color Psychology:
Companies such as Coca Cola and McDonald’s are perfect examples of users of neuromarketing Color is a powerful tool when it comes to your branding decisions, bold colors such as red can provoke hunger, based on research on color psychology red brings warmth, comfort, everything you want to feel when you’re eating. By incorporating visual neuroscience you are more likely to trigger emotional responses from your audience.
Brand Selection:
You don’t want just coffee, you prefer Starbucks. Think about it. The symbolism of holding your Starbucks coffee has more of an impact compared to even drinking another brand. You can tell yourself its the specific flavor or post-rationalise it in a million ways but the reason why you go for one brand over another is called brand salience. Brand salience is the trigger in your brain that, when it comes to the purchase moment, your brain says “buy this.”
The Role of the Brain in Neuromarketing
Neuroscience is a field of research which studies the cognitive, and affective responses of human beings. Thus, it focuses on figuring out how the brain responds to certain stimuli. For “neuromarketing,” the focus in on finding out how the brain responds to certain marketing stimuli. When creating a marketing plan or developing a strategy, the main goal must be to improve the customer experience while boosting brand recognition. Already, companies all the way from Google, to Disney and CBS have invested in neuromarketing. The world around us is changing dramatically. The advances in data analytics and technology have introduced a brand new world for brands. There is more content online than ever before, meaning brands have to work infinitely harder to capture the attention of their target audience. Use neuromarketing to ask your company to consider the research, findings and scientific studies before deciding on a strategy to influence customer buying decisions.
