upFront
MAD AVE
IF I ONLY
HADA
BRAIN SCAN
IT MIGHT SOON BE time to
[L'düíinc MRl machines as
"market research imaging"
devices. At Harvard's McLean
Hospital not long ago, six
male whiskey drinkers,
ages 25 to 34, lined up to
have their brains scanned
for Arnold Worldwide. The
Boston-based ad shop was
using ftinctional magnetic
resonance imaging (Í^1R_^) to
gauge the emotional power
of various images, including
college kids drinking
cocktails on spring break,
twentysomethings with ilasks
around a campfire, and older
guys at a swanky bar. The
scans "help give us empirical
evidence of the emotion
of decision-making," says
Baysie Wightman, head
of Arnold's new, sciencefocused
Human Nature Dept.
The results will help shape
the 2007 ad campaign for
client Brown-Forman, which
owns Jack Daniels.
The idea of peeking into
QUESTION OF
THE WEEK
Toyota is poised to
become the world's
No.l carmaker
Should the U.S. do
more to support
Detroit's Big Three?
If so, how?
-David KHey
the brain for consumer
insights isn't new. More
than a dozen universities
have been using fMRI to
study how people respond
to products (prompting
Ralph Nader's Commercial
Alert group to assert that
"it's wrong to use a medical
technology for marketing,
not healing"). But now a
few agencies like Arnold
—whose clients also include
McDonald's and Fidelity—
and Digitas, another Bostonbased
shop, are offering fMRI
research. "Neuro marketing"
consultants, like Los Angelesbased
FKF Applied Research,
are springing up, too, to link
*lf the goal is to create
jobs, why should
Washington prioritize
Americans vforking for
Ford in Kentucky over
Toyota's Americans in
Kentucky? Are those
who work for Toyota /ess
American than those
working for Ford or GM?"
Jim Press, presiéent, Toyota Motor NA
companies with hospitals
seeking to lease dme on their
pricey MRI machines.
ADVERTISERS look to the scans
to help tweak their messages.
•'If you're going to spend $50
million on an ad campaign,
wouldn't you want to know
if the ad even gets out of the
starting gate?" asks Joshua
Freedman, M.D., who cofounded
FKF. Because scans
for 10 to 20 subjects can cost
$50,000 to $100,000 (vs.
$4,000 for a focus group),
FKF arranges fíWRl time
shares, allowing clients to
show 10 subjects a 30-second
ad for $3,000, for instance.
"IwouldnJbasemy
plans on expecting
change. But if I had a
wish, it would be for
the government to
pass health-care policy
that would place far
less of the burden on
companies."
Uietei ¿etsche. chairman.
DaimlerChrysler
I
Even that's too much
for skeptics. "Just knowing
the area of the brain where
something fires doesn't tell
you anything about why it
fires," says Eric Du Plessis,
author of The Advertised
Mind. But Wightman argues
that consumers often can't
articulate what they like best.
At McLean, she notes, the
spring-break images sparked
the most brain activity, even
though the camping scenes
were the spoken favorite.
(Similarly, high-fat-food
images fired up the brain
of this reporter, despite her
stated preference for photos
of healthy snacks.) Since
the McLean fMRls were
Arnold's first, the agency
itself paid for them. (Brown-
Forman says it might ftind
a future round.) Wightman
concedes that responding to
an ad while in an MRI device
differs from shopping in a
store. That's why she's also
considering doing research
with a sensor-equipped
shirt, originally developed
for medical tests, that
records rises in sweating
or heartbeat as the wearer
responds to a product.
-Aili McConnon
"Health-care reform.
But, politically, that's
like trying to boil the
ocean. So I'd like
Washington to invest
much more to help
with our plans to make
more fuel-efficient
vehicles"
Mark Fields, president of the
Americas. Ford Motor
January 22, 2007 BusinessWeek I 19
Copyright of BusinessWeek is the property of Bloomberg, L.P. and its content may not be copied or emailed to
multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users
may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
MAD AVE
IF I ONLY
HADA
BRAIN SCAN
IT MIGHT SOON BE time to
[L'düíinc MRl machines as
"market research imaging"
devices. At Harvard's McLean
Hospital not long ago, six
male whiskey drinkers,
ages 25 to 34, lined up to
have their brains scanned
for Arnold Worldwide. The
Boston-based ad shop was
using ftinctional magnetic
resonance imaging (Í^1R_^) to
gauge the emotional power
of various images, including
college kids drinking
cocktails on spring break,
twentysomethings with ilasks
around a campfire, and older
guys at a swanky bar. The
scans "help give us empirical
evidence of the emotion
of decision-making," says
Baysie Wightman, head
of Arnold's new, sciencefocused
Human Nature Dept.
The results will help shape
the 2007 ad campaign for
client Brown-Forman, which
owns Jack Daniels.
The idea of peeking into
QUESTION OF
THE WEEK
Toyota is poised to
become the world's
No.l carmaker
Should the U.S. do
more to support
Detroit's Big Three?
If so, how?
-David KHey
the brain for consumer
insights isn't new. More
than a dozen universities
have been using fMRI to
study how people respond
to products (prompting
Ralph Nader's Commercial
Alert group to assert that
"it's wrong to use a medical
technology for marketing,
not healing"). But now a
few agencies like Arnold
—whose clients also include
McDonald's and Fidelity—
and Digitas, another Bostonbased
shop, are offering fMRI
research. "Neuro marketing"
consultants, like Los Angelesbased
FKF Applied Research,
are springing up, too, to link
*lf the goal is to create
jobs, why should
Washington prioritize
Americans vforking for
Ford in Kentucky over
Toyota's Americans in
Kentucky? Are those
who work for Toyota /ess
American than those
working for Ford or GM?"
Jim Press, presiéent, Toyota Motor NA
companies with hospitals
seeking to lease dme on their
pricey MRI machines.
ADVERTISERS look to the scans
to help tweak their messages.
•'If you're going to spend $50
million on an ad campaign,
wouldn't you want to know
if the ad even gets out of the
starting gate?" asks Joshua
Freedman, M.D., who cofounded
FKF. Because scans
for 10 to 20 subjects can cost
$50,000 to $100,000 (vs.
$4,000 for a focus group),
FKF arranges fíWRl time
shares, allowing clients to
show 10 subjects a 30-second
ad for $3,000, for instance.
"IwouldnJbasemy
plans on expecting
change. But if I had a
wish, it would be for
the government to
pass health-care policy
that would place far
less of the burden on
companies."
Uietei ¿etsche. chairman.
DaimlerChrysler
I
Even that's too much
for skeptics. "Just knowing
the area of the brain where
something fires doesn't tell
you anything about why it
fires," says Eric Du Plessis,
author of The Advertised
Mind. But Wightman argues
that consumers often can't
articulate what they like best.
At McLean, she notes, the
spring-break images sparked
the most brain activity, even
though the camping scenes
were the spoken favorite.
(Similarly, high-fat-food
images fired up the brain
of this reporter, despite her
stated preference for photos
of healthy snacks.) Since
the McLean fMRls were
Arnold's first, the agency
itself paid for them. (Brown-
Forman says it might ftind
a future round.) Wightman
concedes that responding to
an ad while in an MRI device
differs from shopping in a
store. That's why she's also
considering doing research
with a sensor-equipped
shirt, originally developed
for medical tests, that
records rises in sweating
or heartbeat as the wearer
responds to a product.
-Aili McConnon
"Health-care reform.
But, politically, that's
like trying to boil the
ocean. So I'd like
Washington to invest
much more to help
with our plans to make
more fuel-efficient
vehicles"
Mark Fields, president of the
Americas. Ford Motor
January 22, 2007 BusinessWeek I 19
Copyright of BusinessWeek is the property of Bloomberg, L.P. and its content may not be copied or emailed to
multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users
may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
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