Viewpoint
Marketing services more effectively with
neuromarketing research: a look into the future
Douglas L. Fugate
Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, Kentucky, USA
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to alert services marketers that a new methodology exists for researching many of the components of the
consumer decision making process.
Design/methodology/approach – This methodology involves the use of real-time measurements of neural (brain) activity associated with the
presentation of various marketing stimuli. Instead of relying on traditional inferential associations to explain consumer behavior, this approach provides
direct correlational associations.
Findings – The ability to examine what specific brain function or functions are activated during various stages of the consumer’s decision-making
process should help service marketers improve their efficiency and effectiveness. While neuromarketing has applications to all forms of product
marketing, it is of particular interest to services marketers because of the intangible nature of services; thus making conventional research more difficult
and speculative.
Research limitations/implications – Information for this paper was gathered from a variety of literature resources because the use of neural imaging
has been used in many different physical and social sciences such as medicine, economics, political science, marketing, and psychology. While a few
specific examples of using neuromarketing for the marketing of services exist, most are proprietary. This limits the generalizability of this paper currently
but hopefully does not diminish interest in an area of research that has great potential for helping to answer many difficult questions.
Originality/value – Services marketers are encouraged to follow the technique as it evolves from medical procedure to marketing procedure.
Keywords Market research, Services marketing, Neurology
Paper type Viewpoint
Recently, I was introduced to the field of marketing inquiry
called neuromarketing – which may have profound
implications for the future of services marketing. It isn’t a
new field of inquiry per se; equipment capable of performing
neurological studies has been around for several decades.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI),
electroencephalography (EEC), psychophysical, and
magnetoencephalography (MEG) devices were and still are
used primarily as medical diagnostic devices. These
instruments provide colorful film images of real-time brain
activity based on changes in ion polarity, temperature, or
electronic impulses. However, the ability to use these same
machines to capture images of the brain performing
consumption-related functions has drawn enthusiastic
proponents and pessimistic detractors alike. Proponents
envision gathering hard evidence of neuronal activity,
location, and timing; evidence that could help market
researchers actually peer inside of the “black box”
customarily used to explain the mystery of the consumer
decision-making process. Detractors envision a time when
consumers would become more vulnerable; perhaps even
exploited, by marketers who have access to critical
information previously stored in subconscious and or
perhaps inaccessible reaches of the mind. A review of the
literature (see the Further reading section) suggests that both
groups are probably premature in their assessments.
In some ways, unraveling the mystery of the mind began
with Plato who compared the human soul to a chariot pulled
by the two horses of reason and emotion. As a practical
matter, the horse of reason has prevailed through the
centuries. Economic philosophers emphasized the
importance of the “economic man” who would make
reasoned decisions; Adam Smith adopted the thesis that the
rational allocation of resources would best serve a society’s
interest; and more recently, marketing theorists have
embraced the importance of value creation (ratio of costs to
benefits) and the key role of satisfaction (confirmation of preformed
expectations). Both of these widely accepted
marketing concepts assume a form of cognitive economic
rationality on the part of the consumer.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0887-6045.htm
Journal of Services Marketing
22/2 (2008) 170–173
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited [ISSN 0887-6045]
[DOI 10.1108/08876040810862903]
Received: February 2007
Revised: September 2007
Accepted: October 2007
170
Ignoring Plato’s horse of emotion wasn’t intentional; it was
simply easier for marketers to explore that which could more
easily be measured. As the old adage goes, what can’t be
measured, tends to be ignored. However, a new scenario may
emerge with the extrapolation of neural science to marketing,
thus the term neuromarketing. Plato’s horse of emotion is
now being teamed with the horse of reason via high
technology devices capable of correlating exposure to
marketing stimuli with images of simultaneous brain activity.
There may be more marketing science and less marketing art
in our future. While some might find comfort in this fact, it
may also unseat many of the conventional explanations of
consumer behavior including those developed in the services
marketing literature. Some selected applications of
neuromarketing to services marketing follow to illustrate this
possibility.
Neurological science provides some fascinating glimpses of
what might be done in the area of researching the impact of
services advertisements. Obvious applications are observing
the level of emotional involvement or attraction power when
subjects are exposed to elements of a services advertisement.
Early research results of this type suggest that consumers’
advertising preferences – based on overt criteria – do not
coincide with what the brain itself reveals through neural
scans. However, insights far beyond establishing ad
preferences are possible. For example, tangibilization is
often advocated as a means to give specificity and meaning
to largely intangible services. Bears, ducks, geckos and lions
have all been used in that regard. Similarly, services
themselves are often anthropomorphized and appear as
talking banks or smiling airplanes. While consumers may
attribute human-like characteristics to service brands and
products, neural research suggests services attributions based
on non-human tangibilization are not made in the same
region of the brain or in the same way as attributions based on
exposure to people. This poses many questions for the
practice of developing service brand personalities.
Neuromarketing techniques may well be able to help refine
our understanding of the unique characteristics of services;
such as intangibility. Many of the tangible, product-based
explanations of consumer decision making are inappropriate
for intangible purchases. Thus, alternative explanations such
as SERVQUAL have been developed to capture the key
criteria driving service selection and service satisfaction
decisions. As any examination of the services marketing
literature confirms, such explanations are highly speculative
and controversial. For example, are “empathy” and
“responsiveness” truly separate constructs? Until now,
arguments based on inference and the force of persuasion
drove such debates. fMRI offers an alternative. If, for
example, exposure to items associated with “responsiveness”
activate the same region of the brain as those items associated
with “trust,” then there is a strong prima facie case that these
are not separate constructs; otherwise these items would be
processed in different areas of the brain. In the face of such
physical evidence, modifications or even reconstructions of
SERQVUAL would be indicated. Neuroscience holds open
the possibility of empirically testing this and other inferential
models that were developed using traditional research
methods. Even the most determined research subject is
unlikely to be able to accurately represent his or her conscious
and subconscious thought processes. Neuroscience removes
this methodological barrier.
Neuromarketing can be used to help service researchers
develop more effective pricing strategies. Neural research
shows that the brain’s response to short-term riches occurs
largely in the limbic system, a region that governs emotion.
Future rewards are considered in the prefrontal cortex which
is often associated the reason and calculation. All things being
equal, the reward of immediate economic gratification
generated by the limbic region will prevail over the
rationality of deferring rewards generated by the prefrontal
cortex. This does not present a problem for service products
with inherent short term rewards, e.g. ones associated with
food, entertainment, etc. However, service products that
exhibit no immediate rewards (e.g. home protection systems,
insurance policies, preventative medicine, etc.) do not
generate much emotional involvement and therefore may
receive relatively low processing priority – unless emotional
rewards can be invoked. Again, this is something that we
might have known intuitively, but now we can empirically test
various emotional appeals to see which one generates
appropriate levels of limbic system activity. Once emotional
responses are attained, rational appeals can then be presented;
it is all a matter of sequencing and timing; decisions that can
be greatly facilitated by neuromarketing techniques which
visually depict which brain areas are active during
presentation of specific marketing stimuli.
One of the distinguishing characteristics of services is
simultaneous production and consumption. While this allows
for greater customization of services; matching capacity levels
to demand levels, and the like, it also increases the probability
that a service customer will perceive some level of relative
unfairness when comparing the service performance they
received to that received by another. When customers think
they are being treated unfairly, a small area called the anterior
insula becomes active. The brain’s response is similar to that
of smelling a skunk. Such a powerful, negative, and primitive
reaction easily overwhelms the deliberation of the more logical
prefrontal cortex region. Under these conditions, the
perceptions of exchange fairness by a service consumer
probably take on even a larger role than first imagined. If
unfairness is perceived, it is very difficult to re-establish the
relationship as the brain has neural wiring from its early
formative period that protects it from known dangers – just as
it continues to repeat “safe” behaviors. It would be possible to
set up experiments depicting various acts of service delivery
“unfairness.” Neural scanning of the anterior insula would
detect and measure the degree of activity generated by various
depictions. This information would allow the services product
marketer to determine which critical incidents of this type are
most damaging; plan more efficient and targeted recovery
effort for service failure, and thus reduce customer loss.
Services are largely intangible and more difficult to evaluate
both pre- and sometimes post purchase. These latter service
products are generally higher in credence value meaning that
the customer has to accept the credibility of the service
marketer. In effect, such transactions between a service
provider and a service customer are presumed to be based on
trust. When trust is high, a hormone called oxytocin fills
different areas of the brain. Oxytocin is part of an emotional
response and thus pleasurable. Reducing the “concentration”
Marketing services more effectively
Douglas L. Fugate
Journal of Services Marketing
Volume 22 · Number 2 · 2008 · 170–173
171
– so to speak – of trust in a service transaction would seem to
reduce the corresponding amount of pleasure. In other words,
the implementation of “hard” technology to standardize
service production and reduce costs might be detrimental to
customers’ feelings of emotional satisfaction. While many
service marketers might have intuitively suspected this in the
past, brain imaging provides a neurological explanation. As a
result, service marketers could theoretically experiment with
different levels of trust to see which generates satisfying levels
of oxytocin given services production parameters. It would
also allow the services marketer to determine how quickly
these levels are internalized; meaning the level of trust might
need to be increased to maintain that sense of pleasure.
These illustrations are provided as examples of current
neuroscience findings that have, or at least appear to have,
application in services marketing. The feasibility of
implementing these and numerous other applications has
yet to be determined but the allure of success has resulted in
around 90 neuromarketing consultancies setting up in the
USA and many more in Europe. Agency clients include
Fortune 500 manufacturers and notable service firms like
McDonald’s, movie studios, several large banks, and at least a
few political campaigns.
At this stage, detractors and cautious marketing executives
have good reason to question the validity and efficacy of
neuromarketing. Those who are cautious are waiting for large
scale testing (currently most results are based on very small
groups at a high cost per experiment); more integration of the
findings with other behavioral influences; and convincing
proof that brain activity in fact does lead directly to behavior.
One pundit compared it to looking up at a fireworks display
and trying to deduce the reason for the celebration from the
pattern of the display. Neuroscience images used in marketing
are still interpreted by largely unconventional means. More
visionary thinkers see fMRI images as merely symptoms that
may lead to a broader understanding of brain functioning;
having no particular relevance in themselves. As a result of
these definitional and operational difficulties, researchers and
advertisers are having a hard time translating scientific
understanding into broadly applicable practices and
framework.
Detractors such as Ralph Nadar and Consumer Alert fear
some Orwellian future where unscrupulous marketers can
induce consumers to make bad purchasing choices by
exploiting the biologically determined structure of the brain.
Presumably, visual images (the part of the brain that deals
with sight is more developed than the one that deals with the
more recently acquired language skills) and emotions (which
the Gallup organization says is the basis for all human
behavior), could influence consumers to willingly respond to
marketing influences that they themselves are unaware of and
cannot control. Currently, there is no evidence that this has or
will happen. Many observers are willing to take a “wait and
see” attitude. Some even predict a more consumer-friendly
future where neuroscience will be able to protect the socially
desirable domain of free will; visibly demonstrate the value of
socially responsible corporate behavior; or augment public
policies.
In my opinion, this is a field of inquiry that service
marketers should watch and study carefully. Services, by their
intangible nature, tend to resist the influences of rational
decision making and inferential attributions. Obtaining a
better understanding of how the brain reacts to marketing
stimuli and processes those stimuli should be of great interest
to service marketers in many settings. Marketing practitioners
wishing to learn more about the world of neuromarketing
should search out the published works of Eric DuPlessis; Lee,
Broderick and Chamberlain; Fehr, Fishbacher and Kosfeld;
Anthony Grimes; McClure et al.; Thomas Mucha; and Yoon
et al. If one is interested in pursuing an experiment specific to
services marketing, many timely subjects – e.g. risk, rewards,
satisfaction, quality, value, or loyalty associated with services
– would seem to offer promising lines in inquiry. On-line
search engines can be used to locate commercial market
research firms that provide neurological scanning services or
medical research facilities/universities that “rent” out their
scanning equipment. Research experiments have already been
performed at Institutions such as Emory University, MIT,
and Stanford University. Contacts with these institutions
might provide helpful insights into designing and
implementing a research protocol.
Further reading
Camerer, C., Lowenstein, G. and Prelec, D. (2004),
“Neuroeconomics: why economics needs brains”, Journal
of Economics, Vol. 106 No. 3, pp. 555-79.
duPlessis, E. (2005), The Advertised Mind: Ground Breaking
Insights into How Our Brains Respond to Advertising, Kogan
Page, London.
Fehr, E., Fischbacher, U. and Kosfeld, M. (2005),
“Neuroeconomic foundation of trust and social
preferences: initial evidence”, American Economic Review,
Vol. 95 No. 2, pp. 346-51.
Friedman, R.A. (2006), “What’s the ultimate? Scan a male
brain”, New York Times, Vol. 156 No. 53743, p. G10.
Glimcher, P. (2003), Decisions, Uncertainty and the Brain: The
Science of Neuroeconomics, MIT Press, London.
Grimes, A. (2006), “Are we listening and learning?
Understanding the nature of hemispherical lateralisation
and its application to marketing”, International Journal of
Marketing Research, Vol. 48 No. 4, pp. 439-60.
Kenning, P., Plassmann, H. and Ahlert, D. (2007),
“Applications of functional magnetic resonance imaging
for market research”, Qualitative Market Research: An
International Journal, Vol. 10 No. 2, pp. 135-52.
Knutson, B. and Peterson, R. (2005), “Neurally
reconstructing expected utility”, Games and Economic
Behavior, Vol. 52, pp. 305-15.
Knutson, B., Rick, S., Wimmer, G.E., Prelec, D. and
Loewenstein, G. (2007), “Neural predictors of purchases”,
Neuron, Vol. 53, pp. 147-57.
Lee, N., Broderick, A. and Chamberlain, L. (2007), “What is
neuromarketing? A discussion and agenda for future
research”, International Journal of Psychophysiology, Vol. 63
No. 2, pp. 199-204.
McClure, S.M., Laibson, D., Loewenstein, G. and Cohen, J.
(2004), “Separate neural systems value immediate and
delayed monetary rewards”, Science, 15 October.
McClure, S.M., Li, J., Tomlin, D., Cypert, K.S., Montague,
L.M. and Montague, P.R. (2004), “Neural correlates of
behavioral preference for culturally familiar drinks”,
Neuron, Vol. 44, pp. 379-87.
Marketing services more effectively
Douglas L. Fugate
Journal of Services Marketing
Volume 22 · Number 2 · 2008 · 170–173
172
Medina, J. (2004), “The neurobiology of the decision to buy”,
Psychiatric Times, October, pp. 31-4.
Mucha, T. (2005a), “This is your brain on advertising”,
Business 2.0, Vol. 6 No. 7, pp. 35-7.
Psychiatric Annals (2004), “Biological branding:
neuroimaging studies may form a basis for new marketing
and advertising strategies”, Psychiatric Annals, Vol. 34 No. 9,
pp. 672-86.
Renvoise, P. and Morin, C. (2005), Neuromarketing: Is There a
“Buy Button” Inside the Brain?, SalesBrain Publishing, San
Francisco, CA.
Schafer, A. (2005), “Buy this”, Scientific American Mind,
Vol. 16 No. 2, pp. 72-5.
Singer, E. (2004), “They know what you want”, New Scientist,
Vol. 183 No. 2458, pp. 36-7.
Walton, C. (2004), “The brave new world of neuromarketing
is here”, B&T (Australia), 19 November, p. 22.
Yoon, C., Gutchess, A.H., Feinberg, F. and Polk, T.A.
(2006), “A functional magnetic resonance imaging study of
neural dissociations between brand and person judgments”,
Journal of Consumer Behavior, Vol. 33, pp. 31-40.
Zak, P.J., Borja, K., Matzner, W. and Kurzban, R. (2005),
“The neuroeconomics of distrust: sex differences in
behavior and physiology”, American Economic Review,
Vol. 95 No. 2, pp. 360-3.
Zaltman, G. (2003), How Consumers Think, Harvard Business
School Press, Boston, MA.
About the author
Douglas L. Fugate has been engaged in full-time research and
teaching for 33 years in a career that has included
appointments at three universities and teaching experiences
in four foreign countries. He has published approximately 40
journal articles covering diverse topics such as healthcare
marketing, microenterprise, humor in advertising, women in
sales, and cross-cultural marking studies. Dr Fugate has been
active as a reviewer for many conferences and for ten different
refereed journals. He currently reviews for four journals;
mostly in the services area. His commitment to the Journal of
Services Marketing began about 25 years ago when the journal
was still privately held. Douglas L. Fugate can be contacted
at: douglas.fugate@wku.edu
Marketing services more effectively
Douglas L. Fugate
Journal of Services Marketing
Volume 22 · Number 2 · 2008 · 170–173
173
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
Marketing services more effectively with
neuromarketing research: a look into the future
Douglas L. Fugate
Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, Kentucky, USA
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to alert services marketers that a new methodology exists for researching many of the components of the
consumer decision making process.
Design/methodology/approach – This methodology involves the use of real-time measurements of neural (brain) activity associated with the
presentation of various marketing stimuli. Instead of relying on traditional inferential associations to explain consumer behavior, this approach provides
direct correlational associations.
Findings – The ability to examine what specific brain function or functions are activated during various stages of the consumer’s decision-making
process should help service marketers improve their efficiency and effectiveness. While neuromarketing has applications to all forms of product
marketing, it is of particular interest to services marketers because of the intangible nature of services; thus making conventional research more difficult
and speculative.
Research limitations/implications – Information for this paper was gathered from a variety of literature resources because the use of neural imaging
has been used in many different physical and social sciences such as medicine, economics, political science, marketing, and psychology. While a few
specific examples of using neuromarketing for the marketing of services exist, most are proprietary. This limits the generalizability of this paper currently
but hopefully does not diminish interest in an area of research that has great potential for helping to answer many difficult questions.
Originality/value – Services marketers are encouraged to follow the technique as it evolves from medical procedure to marketing procedure.
Keywords Market research, Services marketing, Neurology
Paper type Viewpoint
Recently, I was introduced to the field of marketing inquiry
called neuromarketing – which may have profound
implications for the future of services marketing. It isn’t a
new field of inquiry per se; equipment capable of performing
neurological studies has been around for several decades.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI),
electroencephalography (EEC), psychophysical, and
magnetoencephalography (MEG) devices were and still are
used primarily as medical diagnostic devices. These
instruments provide colorful film images of real-time brain
activity based on changes in ion polarity, temperature, or
electronic impulses. However, the ability to use these same
machines to capture images of the brain performing
consumption-related functions has drawn enthusiastic
proponents and pessimistic detractors alike. Proponents
envision gathering hard evidence of neuronal activity,
location, and timing; evidence that could help market
researchers actually peer inside of the “black box”
customarily used to explain the mystery of the consumer
decision-making process. Detractors envision a time when
consumers would become more vulnerable; perhaps even
exploited, by marketers who have access to critical
information previously stored in subconscious and or
perhaps inaccessible reaches of the mind. A review of the
literature (see the Further reading section) suggests that both
groups are probably premature in their assessments.
In some ways, unraveling the mystery of the mind began
with Plato who compared the human soul to a chariot pulled
by the two horses of reason and emotion. As a practical
matter, the horse of reason has prevailed through the
centuries. Economic philosophers emphasized the
importance of the “economic man” who would make
reasoned decisions; Adam Smith adopted the thesis that the
rational allocation of resources would best serve a society’s
interest; and more recently, marketing theorists have
embraced the importance of value creation (ratio of costs to
benefits) and the key role of satisfaction (confirmation of preformed
expectations). Both of these widely accepted
marketing concepts assume a form of cognitive economic
rationality on the part of the consumer.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0887-6045.htm
Journal of Services Marketing
22/2 (2008) 170–173
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited [ISSN 0887-6045]
[DOI 10.1108/08876040810862903]
Received: February 2007
Revised: September 2007
Accepted: October 2007
170
Ignoring Plato’s horse of emotion wasn’t intentional; it was
simply easier for marketers to explore that which could more
easily be measured. As the old adage goes, what can’t be
measured, tends to be ignored. However, a new scenario may
emerge with the extrapolation of neural science to marketing,
thus the term neuromarketing. Plato’s horse of emotion is
now being teamed with the horse of reason via high
technology devices capable of correlating exposure to
marketing stimuli with images of simultaneous brain activity.
There may be more marketing science and less marketing art
in our future. While some might find comfort in this fact, it
may also unseat many of the conventional explanations of
consumer behavior including those developed in the services
marketing literature. Some selected applications of
neuromarketing to services marketing follow to illustrate this
possibility.
Neurological science provides some fascinating glimpses of
what might be done in the area of researching the impact of
services advertisements. Obvious applications are observing
the level of emotional involvement or attraction power when
subjects are exposed to elements of a services advertisement.
Early research results of this type suggest that consumers’
advertising preferences – based on overt criteria – do not
coincide with what the brain itself reveals through neural
scans. However, insights far beyond establishing ad
preferences are possible. For example, tangibilization is
often advocated as a means to give specificity and meaning
to largely intangible services. Bears, ducks, geckos and lions
have all been used in that regard. Similarly, services
themselves are often anthropomorphized and appear as
talking banks or smiling airplanes. While consumers may
attribute human-like characteristics to service brands and
products, neural research suggests services attributions based
on non-human tangibilization are not made in the same
region of the brain or in the same way as attributions based on
exposure to people. This poses many questions for the
practice of developing service brand personalities.
Neuromarketing techniques may well be able to help refine
our understanding of the unique characteristics of services;
such as intangibility. Many of the tangible, product-based
explanations of consumer decision making are inappropriate
for intangible purchases. Thus, alternative explanations such
as SERVQUAL have been developed to capture the key
criteria driving service selection and service satisfaction
decisions. As any examination of the services marketing
literature confirms, such explanations are highly speculative
and controversial. For example, are “empathy” and
“responsiveness” truly separate constructs? Until now,
arguments based on inference and the force of persuasion
drove such debates. fMRI offers an alternative. If, for
example, exposure to items associated with “responsiveness”
activate the same region of the brain as those items associated
with “trust,” then there is a strong prima facie case that these
are not separate constructs; otherwise these items would be
processed in different areas of the brain. In the face of such
physical evidence, modifications or even reconstructions of
SERQVUAL would be indicated. Neuroscience holds open
the possibility of empirically testing this and other inferential
models that were developed using traditional research
methods. Even the most determined research subject is
unlikely to be able to accurately represent his or her conscious
and subconscious thought processes. Neuroscience removes
this methodological barrier.
Neuromarketing can be used to help service researchers
develop more effective pricing strategies. Neural research
shows that the brain’s response to short-term riches occurs
largely in the limbic system, a region that governs emotion.
Future rewards are considered in the prefrontal cortex which
is often associated the reason and calculation. All things being
equal, the reward of immediate economic gratification
generated by the limbic region will prevail over the
rationality of deferring rewards generated by the prefrontal
cortex. This does not present a problem for service products
with inherent short term rewards, e.g. ones associated with
food, entertainment, etc. However, service products that
exhibit no immediate rewards (e.g. home protection systems,
insurance policies, preventative medicine, etc.) do not
generate much emotional involvement and therefore may
receive relatively low processing priority – unless emotional
rewards can be invoked. Again, this is something that we
might have known intuitively, but now we can empirically test
various emotional appeals to see which one generates
appropriate levels of limbic system activity. Once emotional
responses are attained, rational appeals can then be presented;
it is all a matter of sequencing and timing; decisions that can
be greatly facilitated by neuromarketing techniques which
visually depict which brain areas are active during
presentation of specific marketing stimuli.
One of the distinguishing characteristics of services is
simultaneous production and consumption. While this allows
for greater customization of services; matching capacity levels
to demand levels, and the like, it also increases the probability
that a service customer will perceive some level of relative
unfairness when comparing the service performance they
received to that received by another. When customers think
they are being treated unfairly, a small area called the anterior
insula becomes active. The brain’s response is similar to that
of smelling a skunk. Such a powerful, negative, and primitive
reaction easily overwhelms the deliberation of the more logical
prefrontal cortex region. Under these conditions, the
perceptions of exchange fairness by a service consumer
probably take on even a larger role than first imagined. If
unfairness is perceived, it is very difficult to re-establish the
relationship as the brain has neural wiring from its early
formative period that protects it from known dangers – just as
it continues to repeat “safe” behaviors. It would be possible to
set up experiments depicting various acts of service delivery
“unfairness.” Neural scanning of the anterior insula would
detect and measure the degree of activity generated by various
depictions. This information would allow the services product
marketer to determine which critical incidents of this type are
most damaging; plan more efficient and targeted recovery
effort for service failure, and thus reduce customer loss.
Services are largely intangible and more difficult to evaluate
both pre- and sometimes post purchase. These latter service
products are generally higher in credence value meaning that
the customer has to accept the credibility of the service
marketer. In effect, such transactions between a service
provider and a service customer are presumed to be based on
trust. When trust is high, a hormone called oxytocin fills
different areas of the brain. Oxytocin is part of an emotional
response and thus pleasurable. Reducing the “concentration”
Marketing services more effectively
Douglas L. Fugate
Journal of Services Marketing
Volume 22 · Number 2 · 2008 · 170–173
171
– so to speak – of trust in a service transaction would seem to
reduce the corresponding amount of pleasure. In other words,
the implementation of “hard” technology to standardize
service production and reduce costs might be detrimental to
customers’ feelings of emotional satisfaction. While many
service marketers might have intuitively suspected this in the
past, brain imaging provides a neurological explanation. As a
result, service marketers could theoretically experiment with
different levels of trust to see which generates satisfying levels
of oxytocin given services production parameters. It would
also allow the services marketer to determine how quickly
these levels are internalized; meaning the level of trust might
need to be increased to maintain that sense of pleasure.
These illustrations are provided as examples of current
neuroscience findings that have, or at least appear to have,
application in services marketing. The feasibility of
implementing these and numerous other applications has
yet to be determined but the allure of success has resulted in
around 90 neuromarketing consultancies setting up in the
USA and many more in Europe. Agency clients include
Fortune 500 manufacturers and notable service firms like
McDonald’s, movie studios, several large banks, and at least a
few political campaigns.
At this stage, detractors and cautious marketing executives
have good reason to question the validity and efficacy of
neuromarketing. Those who are cautious are waiting for large
scale testing (currently most results are based on very small
groups at a high cost per experiment); more integration of the
findings with other behavioral influences; and convincing
proof that brain activity in fact does lead directly to behavior.
One pundit compared it to looking up at a fireworks display
and trying to deduce the reason for the celebration from the
pattern of the display. Neuroscience images used in marketing
are still interpreted by largely unconventional means. More
visionary thinkers see fMRI images as merely symptoms that
may lead to a broader understanding of brain functioning;
having no particular relevance in themselves. As a result of
these definitional and operational difficulties, researchers and
advertisers are having a hard time translating scientific
understanding into broadly applicable practices and
framework.
Detractors such as Ralph Nadar and Consumer Alert fear
some Orwellian future where unscrupulous marketers can
induce consumers to make bad purchasing choices by
exploiting the biologically determined structure of the brain.
Presumably, visual images (the part of the brain that deals
with sight is more developed than the one that deals with the
more recently acquired language skills) and emotions (which
the Gallup organization says is the basis for all human
behavior), could influence consumers to willingly respond to
marketing influences that they themselves are unaware of and
cannot control. Currently, there is no evidence that this has or
will happen. Many observers are willing to take a “wait and
see” attitude. Some even predict a more consumer-friendly
future where neuroscience will be able to protect the socially
desirable domain of free will; visibly demonstrate the value of
socially responsible corporate behavior; or augment public
policies.
In my opinion, this is a field of inquiry that service
marketers should watch and study carefully. Services, by their
intangible nature, tend to resist the influences of rational
decision making and inferential attributions. Obtaining a
better understanding of how the brain reacts to marketing
stimuli and processes those stimuli should be of great interest
to service marketers in many settings. Marketing practitioners
wishing to learn more about the world of neuromarketing
should search out the published works of Eric DuPlessis; Lee,
Broderick and Chamberlain; Fehr, Fishbacher and Kosfeld;
Anthony Grimes; McClure et al.; Thomas Mucha; and Yoon
et al. If one is interested in pursuing an experiment specific to
services marketing, many timely subjects – e.g. risk, rewards,
satisfaction, quality, value, or loyalty associated with services
– would seem to offer promising lines in inquiry. On-line
search engines can be used to locate commercial market
research firms that provide neurological scanning services or
medical research facilities/universities that “rent” out their
scanning equipment. Research experiments have already been
performed at Institutions such as Emory University, MIT,
and Stanford University. Contacts with these institutions
might provide helpful insights into designing and
implementing a research protocol.
Further reading
Camerer, C., Lowenstein, G. and Prelec, D. (2004),
“Neuroeconomics: why economics needs brains”, Journal
of Economics, Vol. 106 No. 3, pp. 555-79.
duPlessis, E. (2005), The Advertised Mind: Ground Breaking
Insights into How Our Brains Respond to Advertising, Kogan
Page, London.
Fehr, E., Fischbacher, U. and Kosfeld, M. (2005),
“Neuroeconomic foundation of trust and social
preferences: initial evidence”, American Economic Review,
Vol. 95 No. 2, pp. 346-51.
Friedman, R.A. (2006), “What’s the ultimate? Scan a male
brain”, New York Times, Vol. 156 No. 53743, p. G10.
Glimcher, P. (2003), Decisions, Uncertainty and the Brain: The
Science of Neuroeconomics, MIT Press, London.
Grimes, A. (2006), “Are we listening and learning?
Understanding the nature of hemispherical lateralisation
and its application to marketing”, International Journal of
Marketing Research, Vol. 48 No. 4, pp. 439-60.
Kenning, P., Plassmann, H. and Ahlert, D. (2007),
“Applications of functional magnetic resonance imaging
for market research”, Qualitative Market Research: An
International Journal, Vol. 10 No. 2, pp. 135-52.
Knutson, B. and Peterson, R. (2005), “Neurally
reconstructing expected utility”, Games and Economic
Behavior, Vol. 52, pp. 305-15.
Knutson, B., Rick, S., Wimmer, G.E., Prelec, D. and
Loewenstein, G. (2007), “Neural predictors of purchases”,
Neuron, Vol. 53, pp. 147-57.
Lee, N., Broderick, A. and Chamberlain, L. (2007), “What is
neuromarketing? A discussion and agenda for future
research”, International Journal of Psychophysiology, Vol. 63
No. 2, pp. 199-204.
McClure, S.M., Laibson, D., Loewenstein, G. and Cohen, J.
(2004), “Separate neural systems value immediate and
delayed monetary rewards”, Science, 15 October.
McClure, S.M., Li, J., Tomlin, D., Cypert, K.S., Montague,
L.M. and Montague, P.R. (2004), “Neural correlates of
behavioral preference for culturally familiar drinks”,
Neuron, Vol. 44, pp. 379-87.
Marketing services more effectively
Douglas L. Fugate
Journal of Services Marketing
Volume 22 · Number 2 · 2008 · 170–173
172
Medina, J. (2004), “The neurobiology of the decision to buy”,
Psychiatric Times, October, pp. 31-4.
Mucha, T. (2005a), “This is your brain on advertising”,
Business 2.0, Vol. 6 No. 7, pp. 35-7.
Psychiatric Annals (2004), “Biological branding:
neuroimaging studies may form a basis for new marketing
and advertising strategies”, Psychiatric Annals, Vol. 34 No. 9,
pp. 672-86.
Renvoise, P. and Morin, C. (2005), Neuromarketing: Is There a
“Buy Button” Inside the Brain?, SalesBrain Publishing, San
Francisco, CA.
Schafer, A. (2005), “Buy this”, Scientific American Mind,
Vol. 16 No. 2, pp. 72-5.
Singer, E. (2004), “They know what you want”, New Scientist,
Vol. 183 No. 2458, pp. 36-7.
Walton, C. (2004), “The brave new world of neuromarketing
is here”, B&T (Australia), 19 November, p. 22.
Yoon, C., Gutchess, A.H., Feinberg, F. and Polk, T.A.
(2006), “A functional magnetic resonance imaging study of
neural dissociations between brand and person judgments”,
Journal of Consumer Behavior, Vol. 33, pp. 31-40.
Zak, P.J., Borja, K., Matzner, W. and Kurzban, R. (2005),
“The neuroeconomics of distrust: sex differences in
behavior and physiology”, American Economic Review,
Vol. 95 No. 2, pp. 360-3.
Zaltman, G. (2003), How Consumers Think, Harvard Business
School Press, Boston, MA.
About the author
Douglas L. Fugate has been engaged in full-time research and
teaching for 33 years in a career that has included
appointments at three universities and teaching experiences
in four foreign countries. He has published approximately 40
journal articles covering diverse topics such as healthcare
marketing, microenterprise, humor in advertising, women in
sales, and cross-cultural marking studies. Dr Fugate has been
active as a reviewer for many conferences and for ten different
refereed journals. He currently reviews for four journals;
mostly in the services area. His commitment to the Journal of
Services Marketing began about 25 years ago when the journal
was still privately held. Douglas L. Fugate can be contacted
at: douglas.fugate@wku.edu
Marketing services more effectively
Douglas L. Fugate
Journal of Services Marketing
Volume 22 · Number 2 · 2008 · 170–173
173
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