36 I ACNR • VOLUME 5 NUMBER 3 • JULY/AUGUST 2005
Market Researchers make Increasing use of Brain Imaging
Although it is now more than thirty years since EEG was
first used to evaluate viewer responses to television commercials1
and a decade since the introduction of fMRI, it
is only in the past eighteen months or so that one has
started to hear the unmistakeable rumble of an
approaching band wagon! The name of that bandwagon
is Neuromarketing.
Hailed by some leading market researchers as the most
important advance in their industry for a century it has
also been dismissed by sceptical neuroscientists as verging
on a pseudo-scientific scam. A recent editorial in
Nature Neuroscience, for example, suggested that many
cognitive scientists who had watched colleagues in molecular
science grow rich were now ‘jumping on the commercial
bandwagon,’ adding that, “According to this view,
neuromarketing is little more than a new fad, exploited
by scientists and marketing consultants to blind corporate
clients with science.” *
That interest in Neuromarketing is growing rapidly is
beyond doubt. A recent edition of the trade publication
Admap (May 2005) gave over almost an entire issue to
the subject, the Market Research Society’s conference earlier
in the year devoted a substantial section to the topic
while the ESOMAR Congress, a world association of
research professionals, due to be held in Cannes this
September, is presenting several key-note papers on the
subject. It has been reported that eight new fMRI facilities,
intended for Neuromarketing rather than medical
purposes, have opened over the past twelve months in the
United States.
While the first use of fMRI as a marketing tool was
reported by Gerry Zaltman of Harvard towards the end
of the 1990’s2 the term ‘Neuromarketing’ was only coined
by Professor Ale Smidts in 2002 and it was not until 2004
that the first ever Neuromarketing conference was held at
Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.
Of the three brain-imaging techniques currently used
in Neuromarketing - fMRI (Functional magnetic resonance
imaging), QEEG (Quantitative electroencephalography)
and MEG (magnetoencephalography) - it is fMRI
which has captured the greatest interest among market
researchers and enjoyed the widest publicity in the general
and marketing trade press.
The piece of research most frequently cited in this context
concerns the use of fMRI to investigate the impact of
brand perception on consumer taste preferences conducted
at the above mentioned Baylor College of Medicine. In
this study researchers repeated the famous Pepsi/Coca-
Cola blind taste test challenge while scanning the brains of
volunteers. When ignorant of which beverage they were
sampling, the subjects favoured Pepsi with their scans
revealing activation of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex
(a reward centre).When aware of which brand they tasted,
however, the scans revealed activity in the hippocampus,
midbrain and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex - areas
associated with memory, emotions and emotional information
processing. This led the researchers to conclude
that a preference for Coke is more influenced by the brand
image than by the taste itself.3
Other studies have used brain-imaging to evaluate
video clips and TV advertisements, study decision making
among shoppers and even to investigate the likely impact
of political advertising during the recent presidential election.
An unpublished study at the University of California,
Los Angeles, for example reported differences in the neural
responses of Democrats and Republicans to commercials
depicting the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
MEG has also been used for Neuromarketing purposes,
albeit to a far lesser extent. In one study, it was used to
measure decision making among consumers in a ‘virtual’
supermarket. The authors reported that the right parietal
cortex became active only when faced with a preferred
brand and concluded that this region was involved in
making conscious decisions about shopping choices, and,
perhaps, for “more important life choices too.”4
When it comes to QEEG, we must declare an interest
since we are both directors of Neuroco, a newly formed
company specialising in the application of this technology
for commercial purposes. Among the numerous projects
for which we have used QEEG over the past twelve
months were; analysing the responses of viewers to television
commercials and other forms of advertising,
exploring the effects of looking at happy or sad facial
expressions, exploring the mental states of motorists dri-
David Lewis, BSc(Hons) D.Phil
has been working in the field of
QEEG since the late 80’s, following
an interest which began when
he was in the Department of
Experimental Psychology at the
University of Sussex. He is currently
research and development
director of Neuroco, a recently
established Neuromarketing research
consultancy. He is coauthor
(with Darren Bridger) of
The Soul of the New Consumer:
Authenticity – What We Buy and
Why in the New Economy.
Darren Bridger BSc(Hon) is associate
director of Neuromarketing
at Neuroco.
Special Feature
Subject wearing electro-cap behind the wheel of her car during a study of brain activity and driver stress.
* Brain Scam? Nature
Neuroscience Vol.7. No. 7. July
2004, page 683.
Subject wired and carrying a Track-it ambulatory EEG in Lakeside
shopping centre, Essex.
Copyright QBO Bell Pottinger
Copyright Steven Matthews
ving against a deadline and examining how people react
to an unexpected ‘freebie’.
We believe that QEEG rather than fMRI or MEG is
most likely to emerge as the technology of choice in
Neuromarketing, since it is simpler and less expensive to
use and enables recordings to be made in a wide range of
natural environments.
Although spatial resolution is poor, it is capable of producing
a continuous record of ongoing neuronal activity.
Furthermore it is backed by more than 2,500 research
papers published in peer reviewed journals going back
more than two decades.5,6,7,8
Clearly there are many pitfalls awaiting those who fail
fully to appreciate the inevitable limitations of all brain
imaging technologies when used for market research rather
than medical diagnosis. Tempted by unscrupulous ‘specialists’
who dangle before them the tantalising prospect of
being able to ‘read’ the mind of consumers, even cynical
advertising and marketing executives may be persuaded to
part with large sums of money to little or no great purpose.
This seems especially likely to happen where fMRI is used
since, in our experience, non-professionals tend to be overly
impressed by the images it produces and all too likely to
confuse correlation with causation.
In our view QEEG, when used in conjunction with other
qualitative research methods, can provide insights into consumer
choices which would not otherwise come to light. In
some instances it may be that these cannot be articulated,
no matter how skilled the interviewer or how co-operative
the subject, because they operate below the level of conscious
awareness. In other cases the very act of acquiring
information may interfere with the cognitions researchers
are attempting to measure. This happens when, for example,
people are instructed to move a so called ‘interest’ lever
to indicate which parts of the screen has caught their attention
while watching TV commercials.
The use of brain-imaging 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!
More realistically, we believe, Neuromarketing offers
the prospect of gaining a better understanding of how the
brain responds in a wide variety of everyday situations. In
addition to proving of great commercial value such
research offers the possibility of increasing our knowledge
of brain function among a non-clinical population
as it extends powerful medical technologies into a new
and challenging area of research.
References
1. Krugman HE. Brain wave measures of media involvement. Journal of
Advertising Research, 1971;11:3-10.
2. Addison T. More science: more sense or nonsense? Ad-Map, May, Issue
2005;461:24.
3. McClure SM et al. Neural Correlates of Behavioral Preference for
Culturally Familiar Drinks. Neuron 2004;44(2):379–87.
4. Brautigam S et al. Magnetoencephalographic signals identify stages in
real life decision processes. Neural Plasticity 2001;8:241-53.
5. Rothschild M et al. EEG activity and the processing of television commercials.
Communication Research 1986;13(2):182-220.
6. Rothschild M and Hyun YJ. Predicting memory for components of TV
commercials from EEG. Journal of consumer research
1990;16(4):472-8.
7. Smith ME and Gevins A. Attention and brain activity while watching
television: components of viewer engagement. Media Psychology
2004;Vol6:285-305.
8. Coan JA and Allen JJB. Frontal EEG asymmetry as a moderator and
mediator of emotion. Biological Psychology 2004;67:7-49.
Special Feature
Market Researchers make Increasing use of Brain Imaging
Although it is now more than thirty years since EEG was
first used to evaluate viewer responses to television commercials1
and a decade since the introduction of fMRI, it
is only in the past eighteen months or so that one has
started to hear the unmistakeable rumble of an
approaching band wagon! The name of that bandwagon
is Neuromarketing.
Hailed by some leading market researchers as the most
important advance in their industry for a century it has
also been dismissed by sceptical neuroscientists as verging
on a pseudo-scientific scam. A recent editorial in
Nature Neuroscience, for example, suggested that many
cognitive scientists who had watched colleagues in molecular
science grow rich were now ‘jumping on the commercial
bandwagon,’ adding that, “According to this view,
neuromarketing is little more than a new fad, exploited
by scientists and marketing consultants to blind corporate
clients with science.” *
That interest in Neuromarketing is growing rapidly is
beyond doubt. A recent edition of the trade publication
Admap (May 2005) gave over almost an entire issue to
the subject, the Market Research Society’s conference earlier
in the year devoted a substantial section to the topic
while the ESOMAR Congress, a world association of
research professionals, due to be held in Cannes this
September, is presenting several key-note papers on the
subject. It has been reported that eight new fMRI facilities,
intended for Neuromarketing rather than medical
purposes, have opened over the past twelve months in the
United States.
While the first use of fMRI as a marketing tool was
reported by Gerry Zaltman of Harvard towards the end
of the 1990’s2 the term ‘Neuromarketing’ was only coined
by Professor Ale Smidts in 2002 and it was not until 2004
that the first ever Neuromarketing conference was held at
Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.
Of the three brain-imaging techniques currently used
in Neuromarketing - fMRI (Functional magnetic resonance
imaging), QEEG (Quantitative electroencephalography)
and MEG (magnetoencephalography) - it is fMRI
which has captured the greatest interest among market
researchers and enjoyed the widest publicity in the general
and marketing trade press.
The piece of research most frequently cited in this context
concerns the use of fMRI to investigate the impact of
brand perception on consumer taste preferences conducted
at the above mentioned Baylor College of Medicine. In
this study researchers repeated the famous Pepsi/Coca-
Cola blind taste test challenge while scanning the brains of
volunteers. When ignorant of which beverage they were
sampling, the subjects favoured Pepsi with their scans
revealing activation of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex
(a reward centre).When aware of which brand they tasted,
however, the scans revealed activity in the hippocampus,
midbrain and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex - areas
associated with memory, emotions and emotional information
processing. This led the researchers to conclude
that a preference for Coke is more influenced by the brand
image than by the taste itself.3
Other studies have used brain-imaging to evaluate
video clips and TV advertisements, study decision making
among shoppers and even to investigate the likely impact
of political advertising during the recent presidential election.
An unpublished study at the University of California,
Los Angeles, for example reported differences in the neural
responses of Democrats and Republicans to commercials
depicting the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
MEG has also been used for Neuromarketing purposes,
albeit to a far lesser extent. In one study, it was used to
measure decision making among consumers in a ‘virtual’
supermarket. The authors reported that the right parietal
cortex became active only when faced with a preferred
brand and concluded that this region was involved in
making conscious decisions about shopping choices, and,
perhaps, for “more important life choices too.”4
When it comes to QEEG, we must declare an interest
since we are both directors of Neuroco, a newly formed
company specialising in the application of this technology
for commercial purposes. Among the numerous projects
for which we have used QEEG over the past twelve
months were; analysing the responses of viewers to television
commercials and other forms of advertising,
exploring the effects of looking at happy or sad facial
expressions, exploring the mental states of motorists dri-
David Lewis, BSc(Hons) D.Phil
has been working in the field of
QEEG since the late 80’s, following
an interest which began when
he was in the Department of
Experimental Psychology at the
University of Sussex. He is currently
research and development
director of Neuroco, a recently
established Neuromarketing research
consultancy. He is coauthor
(with Darren Bridger) of
The Soul of the New Consumer:
Authenticity – What We Buy and
Why in the New Economy.
Darren Bridger BSc(Hon) is associate
director of Neuromarketing
at Neuroco.
Special Feature
Subject wearing electro-cap behind the wheel of her car during a study of brain activity and driver stress.
* Brain Scam? Nature
Neuroscience Vol.7. No. 7. July
2004, page 683.
Subject wired and carrying a Track-it ambulatory EEG in Lakeside
shopping centre, Essex.
Copyright QBO Bell Pottinger
Copyright Steven Matthews
ving against a deadline and examining how people react
to an unexpected ‘freebie’.
We believe that QEEG rather than fMRI or MEG is
most likely to emerge as the technology of choice in
Neuromarketing, since it is simpler and less expensive to
use and enables recordings to be made in a wide range of
natural environments.
Although spatial resolution is poor, it is capable of producing
a continuous record of ongoing neuronal activity.
Furthermore it is backed by more than 2,500 research
papers published in peer reviewed journals going back
more than two decades.5,6,7,8
Clearly there are many pitfalls awaiting those who fail
fully to appreciate the inevitable limitations of all brain
imaging technologies when used for market research rather
than medical diagnosis. Tempted by unscrupulous ‘specialists’
who dangle before them the tantalising prospect of
being able to ‘read’ the mind of consumers, even cynical
advertising and marketing executives may be persuaded to
part with large sums of money to little or no great purpose.
This seems especially likely to happen where fMRI is used
since, in our experience, non-professionals tend to be overly
impressed by the images it produces and all too likely to
confuse correlation with causation.
In our view QEEG, when used in conjunction with other
qualitative research methods, can provide insights into consumer
choices which would not otherwise come to light. In
some instances it may be that these cannot be articulated,
no matter how skilled the interviewer or how co-operative
the subject, because they operate below the level of conscious
awareness. In other cases the very act of acquiring
information may interfere with the cognitions researchers
are attempting to measure. This happens when, for example,
people are instructed to move a so called ‘interest’ lever
to indicate which parts of the screen has caught their attention
while watching TV commercials.
The use of brain-imaging 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!
More realistically, we believe, Neuromarketing offers
the prospect of gaining a better understanding of how the
brain responds in a wide variety of everyday situations. In
addition to proving of great commercial value such
research offers the possibility of increasing our knowledge
of brain function among a non-clinical population
as it extends powerful medical technologies into a new
and challenging area of research.
References
1. Krugman HE. Brain wave measures of media involvement. Journal of
Advertising Research, 1971;11:3-10.
2. Addison T. More science: more sense or nonsense? Ad-Map, May, Issue
2005;461:24.
3. McClure SM et al. Neural Correlates of Behavioral Preference for
Culturally Familiar Drinks. Neuron 2004;44(2):379–87.
4. Brautigam S et al. Magnetoencephalographic signals identify stages in
real life decision processes. Neural Plasticity 2001;8:241-53.
5. Rothschild M et al. EEG activity and the processing of television commercials.
Communication Research 1986;13(2):182-220.
6. Rothschild M and Hyun YJ. Predicting memory for components of TV
commercials from EEG. Journal of consumer research
1990;16(4):472-8.
7. Smith ME and Gevins A. Attention and brain activity while watching
television: components of viewer engagement. Media Psychology
2004;Vol6:285-305.
8. Coan JA and Allen JJB. Frontal EEG asymmetry as a moderator and
mediator of emotion. Biological Psychology 2004;67:7-49.
Special Feature
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