Marketing to tap the brain

Marketing to tap the brain

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Edition: First, Section: Business, pg. 12

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BY CLARE KERMOND

MANY advertisers and their clients have become cynical about the value of traditional market research, creating an opportunity for a new approach such as neuromarketing, according to a leader in the field.

Shane Moon, co-founder of neuromarket research company Inner Truth, said market research that combines neuroscience, psychology and strategic planning, could be far more useful in demonstrating the effectiveness of advertising than old school ideas such as focus groups.

Mr Moon said neuromarket research, which uses biometric measurements such as eye-tracking and EEG (electroencephalogram), can give advertisers hard evidence for clients and proved highly effective recently in packaged goods, food and beverages, banking and telecommunications.

"People are getting jaded about market research, saying 'the research only confirms what we already know'," he said, "and from a design and creative process, market research is often seen as a barrier, whereas, I think, research should be an enabler of good design."

Mr Moon said neuromarketing had become popular in the US and Europe and was slowly gaining support in Australia. While some neuroresearch uses MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) and can be highly expensive, he said research based on eye tracking and measuring the electrical activity of the brain using EEG was typically about 15 per cent more expensive than traditional research.

"Marketing logic is changing, advertisers are starting to realise that it has to be a two-direction conversation with consumers, and consumers are not just wanting products, they are wanting experiences."

Mr Moon will speak at the agIdeas 2011 Advantage business breakfast on May 4.