167
THE NEUROMARKETING – AN INSTRUMENT
OF THE TRADITIONAL MARKETING
TECHNIQUES
Cristina BURGHELEA*
Abstract: The human emotion characterized from a commercial point of
view is perceived as a limitative message whose focus is the product. The tridimension
of the emotion meets the message which determines the spread of
the information and need to consume and acquire. So, the emotional essence
of the one who decides the consuming determines a pressure which is
reflected in the promoting of the product. The need to use a product
determines the interfingering between the two sciences neurology and
marketing and thus resulting the neuromarketing. The neuromarketing
appeared from the need to sustain a decision by all possible means when its
pressure is a way over the ability of a decision maker to confront failure.
The advertising messages will no longer regard the reason or emotional side
of the consumer which leaves room to “escape”, but will regard directly the
process is of the brain, onto which most of the times, the human being has
no control over, but can simulate a credibility of a message received and
can interpret in the same time those erosions which “bother”.
Keywords: product; consumer; advertising; promotion; neuromarketing.
1. Introduction
The traditional marketing starts from an innovating idea but in the
same time with the traditionalist predominance: that every product can be
launched on the market even the need to acquire that product is not the
marginally determined. They refer to the marginal need through the fact
that the consumer must be determined by a superior or inferior limit of the
acquiring thinking of not only an innovative product but also a useful one.
The need to use the products is not determined by a soul individual but by
a collectivity of individuals who can influence the desire to acquire of each
other but also the assimilation of the idea “to have”.
Traditional marketing started from the paradigm death through
adequate promoting activities any products can be launched on the market
regardless if the consumers need it or not, regardless if the products is
* Hyperion University, 169 Calea Calarasilor, St., Bucharest-Romania
168
viable or not. The result is that even at present about 95% of the new
launch products have a life expectancy of a maximum of six months even
if they had an advertising campaign to impose them as an image and as an
idea of the existence of what will eventually be thought as an “absolute
product”. That is why the paradigm has been changed and modern marketing
considers that only the identification and satisfying the needs and
desires of clients is the way towards success; sex acts which actually shows
a superior limit that the necessity vector can reach but also an inferior one
up until which the shadow of failure leads to unsatisfying the desires of
the client.
Only that this new paradigm is difficult to transpose into practice
because up until now the information linked with the desires and needs, the
evaluation criteria and the decision-making strategy have been collected
through techniques subjected to great errors.1 Approximately 95% of the
process is leading to the satisfying of consumers are developed at an
unconscious level, while the traditional investigation methods (focus groups,
interviews etc.) are concentrated on the conscious, reasonable elements of
perceiving and elaborating the reaction to them. This way information
alteration is introduced, of which psychology and sociology are aware, but
not those who pay the actual studies.
The conscience perception of the products is determined by the
necessity but also by the need of novelty, which acts like an inhibitor but is
in fact the information which can be altered, and the vows becoming only a
tangent with the aware element generating unhappiness at an informational
reception level.
For example, in focus groups the opinion of a group appears, and the
opinions are polarized around two positions (for example for and against a
product), most of the people tending to accept without a critical analysis
the opinion expressed by the person with the most resonance.
Creating the interface of a product to manipulate a mass of people is
very easy to accomplish because the starting point is “the unconscious”
which can be maneuvered so as its own opinion to complete and even
identify itself with the opinion of the others.
Another phenomenon is the predisposition to risk, the opinion of the
group becoming more radical than that of the people taken separately,
because a sum of opinions forms a whole and represents a force while the
individual opinion doesn’t have the orientation nor the characteristic a
mass opinion has.
1 Chief Executive September 2006, No. 9, Daniel Bichis, The key to the Consumer’s
Mind, page 39
169
In addition there is a tendency to identify with a social image which
makes the participants respond according to what they think the interviewer
would like to hear. That is why a change of the communicational roads
between the products and the client is imposed, and even creating new
ideas which generate solutions.
The quantum of solutions leads to the appearance of “salvaging ideas”,
which can be enounced like so: in order to make the products be bought it is
necessary to create them according to the unconscious needs and desires of
consumers, and during the whole promoting, buying and using processes
nice emotional experiences to be created for the customers. The experiences
had at an emotional level are those obtained by each consumer through
identifying, observing but in the same time through a great influencing of
the subconscious we does specifically determines need to acquire the unique
quality in acquiring products. The emotional phenolmenon is more and more
emphasized, but also it is more and more manipulated by an overwhelming
majority of those promoting based first of all on the characteristics of the
superior a limit of human emotion, emotion created on certain stimuli which
can lead to the appearance of chain reactions.
This means transferring the emphasize from traditional to modern
elements, from reasonable to emotional ones, from conscious to unconscious
ones – this being possible only by applying the neuromarketing.
2. The neuromarketing phenomen
The neuroscience exists for many years. Often it has been misunderstood
and sometimes even mistaken with some practices. Its principles are
tested in business through its abilities to influence the decision of consumers,
decision which can be influenced anyway more or less by external or
internal factors present at the level of each human activity.
The appearance of this technique started many controversies. The
skeptics think that this is a way to manipulate consumers, while others
think that neurosciences are fascinating.
Invented at Harvard in the mid ’90s by Professor Gerry Zaltman the
neuromarketing is a combination between two sciences, neurology and
marketing, through which the instruments used by the first one initially
only for medical interest, are now being used in advertising purposes. The
neuromarketing appeals to the technology of transmitting images through
magnetic resonance – MRI, technology used to detect brain tumors, but
which allows reading the way the brain receives, processes and interprets
various images presented to it.
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The term neuromarketing designates using the identification techniques
of the brain mechanisms to understand the consumers’ behavior, in
order to optimize the marketing strategies. Answers at the eyes’ (in ECT) or
the brain’s level (especially through EEG and fMRI) are being monitored
to determine the way the consumer perceives, evaluates and reacts to the
stimulant represented by an advertising message, a product or a service.
This way one can find out how the human brain responds to a very
advertising message, and marketing personnel can their facts their options
to popularize a brand. The impact of the message on the brain represents in
fact the key to open a Pandora’s Box. The accomplishment of this mechanism
can lead to increasing sales and most of all to creating a new
perspective and orientation at a sales developing level. This can be done
with the help of some consumers’ representatives who will be presented
some images while they are introduced in a machine and subjected to some
radio magnetic fluxes.
The fragmentation of mass communication can become a force which
added can create an overwhelming impact and can determine just the same
fragmentation of the way consumers react. Implicitly, great corporations
look for means as precise as possible to target the advertising message.
Advertising is not lights in the old days – you take a products and
state is the best on the market and then determine the individuals by
different means to acquire it. Now you must know your target audience,
carefully studying his behavior, but most of all interact with the necessities
of the client, determining him to “choose” you. But the way can now best
the consumer, that people whom a product or service addresses to, is that
of going straight to the source, more accurate... to the brain. That’s the way
one can find out in a relatively short time the behavior of the buyers, their
desire to acquire unique products, and the advertising campaign can be
changed on the way to have a more certain and overwhelming impact on
those who determine the survival on the market.
The desire for affirmation but also the need significantly determined
to conquer a certain target audience, led to the appearance of strategies and
the advertising companies’ level which have started to invest massively in
brain studies, studies which have led without intention to the innovating
concept of neuromarketing.
The neuromarketing tries to find new breaches on the market, tries to
understand and obviously to influence the consumer, tries to develop
managerial strategies which can influence the great mass of those who
significantly determined can reduce the major impact of the losses at an
emotional level. Those who try to find interdependency between the
consumer and his emotional development are based now on many recently
171
developed procedures: imaging with magnetic resonance, from which
result all kinds of images with brain reactions to different stimuli.
In the figure presented below are presented the main techniques used in
neuromarketing which follow either the activity in the profound structures of
the brain (fMRI and PET), or in the surface ones (EEG and MEG). These
techniques can resemble open windows to the interior of the brain, which
allow registering to modification of its functioning during the interaction of
the consumer with the tested product. The obtained information allow
choosing even more efficiently the need for a product, the type of advertising
message, the form it is transmitted in, the conceited to elements of the
products or packaging, the delimitation of the price categories used etc.
For now some methods are less accessible, taking into account costs
but also of obligating the subjects to find themselves in an environment
very different from the usual one, environment which can lead to the
detaching of an emotional collapse and the failure of the used technique
(especially PET and fRMI).
That is why they will probably be used especially for the fundament of
some studies, to detect some stimuli, based on which the obtained results can
be interpreted better, for example, by associating the EEG with the ECT.
Following the direction of the book
(ECT) – 1990
The direction of the look is registered
and the areas it focuses on our
indicated.
Functional magnetic resonance
images (fMRI) – 1990
Identifying the activity of the brain
simultaneously in several regions.
Tomography with anti electrons emission (PET) – 1970
The intensity of the metabolism and the outflow of the
blood in the brain.
Axial computerized tomography(CAT/CT) – 1970
This technique generates images of the body organs.
Magneto-head x-ray (MEG) – 1960
During this procedure that is recorded the activity and the inhibition
of neuron cells in the brain.
Electro- head x-ray (EEG) – 1920
This procedure shows that during different activities modifications of the electrical potential
of the brain are registered and the time needed to process a stimulus can be measured.
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The need to be sold and the need to be known makes each products
try to interact with the consumer. The product is the one who opens the
window towards the inside of the human brain with the help of the need
but also the desire to acquire it. There, at a neuronal level one can observe
a modification of the functional activity during the interaction between the
consumer and different types of products. Choosing these techniques only
enhances the efficiency of the sales and the actual message becomes a
collective hypnosis. The actual connectivity is the one who should have
been effectively determined and stimulated to acquire but also to choose
more or less strategic pivot products. Up until now the marketing solutions
were limited to interact methods of reading our thoughts and feelings.
These noticed how and how much we bought according to the increase or
decrease of prices. An absolutely necessary pivot in marketing development
in general is poll approach. But they aren’t always exact; first of all,
because the people don’t always say what they think or do. That is why
traditional researches are much more intuitive and lack perspective. Then
the fidelity cards were invented. But not even this method could attain a
complete and relevant image, Because not every consumer accepts to be in
a database in exchange for some very low discounts.
Even from the first appearances on the market of the neuromarketing
concept one could observe that the consumer identified himself with the
image of the products and he was more and more tented to say that the
product is exactly like him. The studies performed show that the engine of
the commerce is represented actually by the conclusions reached in the
interactions between neurology and marketing, meaning the association
between the self image and the individual knowledge of each of us.
“Even from the first attempts of Professor Gerry Zeltman from
Harvard University performed in the ’90s, the neuromarketing attracted the
attention of the great companies and found itself a lot of applications.
Following the model first met in genetic engineering and pharmaceutical
research there is a very close collaboration between the great investors and
university laboratories involved in this kind of research.”2 Here are some
of the main developing fields:
3. The competitive advantage of using neuromarketing
The marketing world has always searched for an answer to that
question: to what degree the quality of the product, even recognized by the
consumers, represents a source of competitive advantage. The most
2 Chief Executive September 2006, No. 9, Daniel Bichis, The key to the Consumer’s
Mind, page 40
173
authentic example was offered by the competition between Coca-Cola and
Pepsi Cola. In order to delimitate very well its target market but also to
increase his market share, Pepsi launched in the ‘70s the campaign called
The Pepsi Challenge following which a series of tests were performed in
supermarkets and mini markets where the consumers were asked to decide
which of the two beverages was tastier. Without knowing what beverages
it was about, but most of all focusing on quality 57% of the participants
chose Pepsi and only 43% chose Coca-Cola. These results were intensely
exploitted from an advertising point of view and to prepare the sales force,
but the effect regarding the increase of the market share was insignificant.
Later on an experiment was performed through which the activity of
different areas of the brain was measured with the help of the fMRI when
the subjects came into contact with the two products. The obtained results
were pretty relevant and brought one more time on the first plane the idea
that the existence of neuromarketing and the company’s motivation to
develop their activity in this sense:
• When they didn’t know what beverages it was about, 75% of the
subjects preferred Pepsi, the beverage which activated stronger the
area of the brain which corresponds to the sensation of
satisfaction, of sensorial pleasure;
• When they knew what beverages they tasted, the report was reversed
and for 75% of the people tested Coca-Cola determined the
activity of the area of the brain which responds for valuable judgments
and reason and the one containing the emotional memory.
The experiment shows that the brand image produces the arousing of
some emotions which can become stronger than the direct effect of that
product. It is a demonstration of the reality of the statement that “the products
are created in the factory and the brand is created in the mind of the consumer
and is the one who gives the power and the motivation to success”.
For 30 years the obstinacy with which the consumers continued to
buy a products they now is less tastier than that of the direct competitor
was an enigma, explained through a mysterious “branding effect” which
couldn’t be decomposed in elements to be repeated what could be analyzed
and may be rethought as a future strategy.
The neuromarketing is a revolutionary concept which boomed in the
United States and which recently became known in Europe. A recent study
for formed at Daimler Chrysler showed that the “reward centers” in men’s
brains were activated by sports cars in the same way the response to alcohol
or drugs.
If a study were performed in our country based on the messages in
election campaigns one would notice the fact that in most cases “the brain”
174
of the people masses responds differently, and the image about each
candidate is perceived as a whole which is individualized in individual
accomplishment.
The image is formed in the mind of the information consumer and is
developed in the superior limit of the desire to succeed by voting the best
candidate and thus creating, at a certain time, more or less, a mass hypnosis.
4. Maximizing the impact of advertising
Researchers have proposed a model of the human brain constructed out
of three super posed structures; each of them specialized on certain functions:
• The R complex (reptilian) or the primitive brain, controls the body
and decides very rapidly the strategy we use (we act, we retreat or
we wait), to ensure the satisfying of fundamental needs (physiological,
sexual, security and territory defense etc.);
• The limbic system for the emotional brain, associated with emotions,
feelings attention, general attitude, usual memory (the
recalling of events), the immunity and hormonal balance, the relationships
with the others; its decisions refer to the pleasure or non
pleasure we associate with that situation;
• The neo-cortex or the rational brain, which analyzes and solves the
problems, uses the language and logic, constructs rational memories
(of the materials studied for an exam type) and leads the creative
thinking; its decisions refer to sticking to the rules and previous
experiences, convictions and personal values, self image.
Primary instincts
Quick reactions
Defense and retreat actions
Orienting towards winning
Analysis
Evaluation
Logic
Creative
thinking
The rational
brain
The limbic
system
The reptilian
brain
Emotions
Memory
Learning through
experience
Focus
Leisure/Pain
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In short one can say that in the face of a product the rational brain
evaluates, the emotional one senses, and the primitive one decides what we
have to do. We are aware only of the results of the reasonable evaluation
and partially on the effect on the emotional state. If nor the basic reactions
or emotions are involved the advertising message is simply ignored. That is
why, in order to have an effect, advertising is addressed first of all to the
emotional and primitive brains which it has to determine to open the
channel of focus which transmits the information the words the rational
brain too.
The automobile company Daimler Chrysler financed an experiment
which wanted to establish the types of automobile men want. The result
itself was not expected, preferences being for about 2/3 of sports automobiles,
about 25% of limousines and the rest for compact class.
The important fact was that in this test it was shown that sports
automobiles activate strongly an area of the primitive brain initially considered
as being involved in making decisions linked to vital elements
(appetizing food, attractive and available sexual partner). Activating that
area usually leads to blind gestures, the man acting instinctively to obtain
that trophy. Also the neuronal rewards circuits are activated which thus
produce a profound emotional state, the rational brain is preconditioned to
supply justifications and solutions to obtain that product. There’s nothing
new, off a mobile dealers will say, as they know very well the affect the
presence of a beautiful lady by the side of the car she offers has. But this
finding allowed redrawing the bodies of the limousines and of the compact
class so was to determine on their own a very motivated answer. And it
lead to the re-conceiving of advertising messages and of the presentations
of the sales agents followed by an increase of sales up to 40%.
Another study demonstrated that the act of buying by a person can
even be “predicted” observing with the help of imaging through magnetic
resonance the activation of neuronal circuits. The great companies are so
interested in these evolutions of science that they act many times in a
coalition. But in the same time, the collaborations with the laboratories of
cognitive sciences are done with maximum discretion, out of the fear of
arousing by accident negative reactions of the public opinion.
In our country a special impact which can be the basis for the presence
of neuromarketing was the advertising campaign Maggi developed in
2005. It had a special resonance by “optimizing” the memorizing of an
advertising campaign according to the repeating of the messages and their
diffusion in many environments of mass communication. The idea was so
successful, and the transmitted message had such a special resonance and
the target public level that the mother company Nestle Rumania decided to
176
renew the Maggi campaign in 2006 with the slogan “The Maggi heart
comes back home twice as precious!”
Transmitting information repeatedly through these innovative “ideas”
to persuade the consumers to make the ad in the benefit of the firm with a
low cost, represented by the value of the awards given following the
campaign represents an absolute success of the presence of neuromarketing
on the Romanian market. So, the message seen by the consumer where ever
he was determined the motivation to buy and the resonance of the success
made the neuronal circuits activates the stimulating centers of necessity.
The stimulated envy by the potential winnings determined the motivation
at a neuron-psychical level of the population, so 85%3 Of the Serbian
population one it to receive the promotional Maggi flyer, a percentage
never reached by another developing campaign until present. The frenzy of
this campaign brought out the imagination of the individual to find as
visible as possible places to promote Maggi hearts. The general desire for a
possible daily 2000 euros earning stimulated the subconscious of the
consumer thus generating a passing state of happiness which could only be
satisfied through that visible competing to acquire as many Maggi hearts as
possible which covered without much effort a significant part of the “urban
windows”. The success of the campaign was overwhelming because the
stimuli of the mass hypnosis were detached and all that one called product
individualization became a initiating factor of the need “to have”.
But studies were performed over the Internet to and it was proven that
the accuracy of the anticipation of the buyer behavior is of 77%. The exact
purpose in this case was setting the way a certain site had to be constructed
and what kind of contents it should’ve had. With the help of biometrics
sensors have been recorded all the reactions of those analyzing a certain
site: the conductivity of the skin, the pulse, the respiration, the mimic and
gestures.
The lack of free time and the human need quickly led to conceiving
the sites for virtual stores. The consumer analyses following a documenttation
and decides what to acquire. The visual impact tangent with the
desire to acquire is the initiating stimuli of virtual madness.
On the Internet technology has evolved very quickly, the need to
know the behavior of the customer led to the apparition of “pop-up ads” –
advertising windows which appear when visiting a certain site. It has gone
so far that the advertisers wanted to know which area of the screen we look
at more often, as well as the area we access most often with clicks.
The financial force of these businesses attracted very many hackers
which have developed special viruses: adware and spyware. These viruses
3 http://adplayers.ro/articol/-11/Maggi-pump-twice-as-much-557.html
177
are in fact programs which correlated to the information obtained through
Pop-ups, which download automatically promotional materials posted in
the already learned areas through ”screen knowing”.
The chaotic receiving of spam messages leads to the initiation of the
desire to acquire especially by stimulating the desire to try out a product you
receive a lot of emails about. The advertisers are based on the mass effect,
by sending as many spam’s as possible to which very few will answer.
Seeing the message initiates at a neuronal level a simulation of the
desire to acquire and thus no a subtle manipulation of the consumer it is
strides actually to consciously limit his memory.
In a very close future the accident factor on the Internet will be
forgotten and the contents will go to the users already “analyzed” by the
consumers and then adapted for them.
For the specialists in neuromarketing the self image and the self
knowing of each of us represent the white gold of a perfect alchemy: the
transformation of the self love in the low of four the other self which is
transposed in an advertising target. The consumer must tremble, vibrates
and feel an overwhelming desire to acquire a product; the comfort of having
a relative stability and being dominated by the continuum desire to acquire.
The subconscious memorizing mechanisms are those who initiate the
actions leading to the evaluation of the state of satisfaction of the masses.
”The intimate knowledge of the consumer’s brain can only incite the
enterprises and their advertising deputies to escape from the spaces
normally allocated for communications. The conditions of the receptivity
of a brand are judged more favorably as the “target” is not actually aware it
is regarded. It is what the rapid development of the advertisement explains,
this hybrid between advertising and amusement”.4
5. Motivation through advertisements
The traditional evaluation methods of the efficiency of advertisements
(re-memorizing the spot, recognition tests and measuring the attitude
towards the product or brand) is based exclusively on what the subjects
report – so it is limited to the conscious memory. The purpose of the advertising
investment is to determine people to buy their own promoted
products or services, not to understand their advantages or to like the story
of the spot. The essential difference between emotion and reason is the fact
that emotions make us act, while reason only makes us evaluate. And when
4 Le monde diplomatique, Marie Benilde, Advertising Is Involmed in Neurosciences,
November 2007, pag. 3
178
we talk about motivation, we almost exclusively refer to the emotional and
the reptilian brains.
The advertising message with an intensively emotional content
activates imagination, people having the tendency to verify in what way
the product can satisfy them. The result is that after such an imaginative
test the information is memorized as if the experience would have actually
occurred and activates decisional elements in the primitive brain. There are
some clear differences between the answer of the brain towards the
reasonable and emotional spots. The latter activate strongly the areas of the
brain implicated in establishing social relationships and making decisions –
exactly the type of answer any company which invests in TV advertising
wants. Using the neurosciences represents the most important progress in
the field of market research in the last 25 years.
For the moment a translation of the neurological data in the specific
marketing language is being done, so as for the information to be used by
those who know the other elements of the marketing mix.
6. Conclusions
The neuromarketing offers a multitude of additional information, but
it can’t offer any kind of information linked to the behavior of consumers.
The second limit is that of the price and technology. For the moment, the
PET and fMRI (the strongest) type techniques can only be applied in the
laboratory, and the rental price of the equipment is significant. But it can
be estimated, like has happened with a lot other technologies that the
appearance of real demand for such equipment for other purposes than
medical ones will lead to a rapid decrease of the cost and dimensions of the
equipment.
At last, it mustn’t be ignored the reaction of consumers’ associations
which fight for the limiting of the freedom of advertising agents and
market studying companies to obtain information about the way the
consumers elaborate their decisions. It is a reaction determined by fear of
the possible latter manipulation by identifying an “acquisition button” to
transform them into certain victims of the advertising messages. One can
observe that: even a reduced increase of the efficiency of advertising leads
to a boom of some diseases such as: obesity, anorexia or type 2 diabetes.
But such reactions fueled by the hunger for sensational of the media
are not justified.
What neuromarketing can actually do is improve the way the companies
create and promote products so as to make them more interesting,
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attractive and valuable for the consumers. The objective of neuromarketing
is to change the behavior of companies which can easily pass over the
decision of the individual and not over the behavior of the consumers.
At least this is what the promoters of neuromarketing sustain, the
market studying technique which appeals to psychiatric instruments to
guarantee the advertising message will permanently and efficiently stay in
the mind of the audience.
REFERENCES
[1] Miller, E. K. Cohen, J. D. (2001), An integrative theory of prefrontal cortex function,
Annual Review of Neuroscience, pp. 167-202
[2] Zaltman, G. (2003), How Customers Think: Essential insights into the mind of the
market. Boston, USA, Ed. Harvard Business School Press
[3] http://www. chiefexecutive.net
[4] http://www.sfin.ro
[5] http://www.capital.ro
[6] http://www.monde-diplomatique.ro
[7] http://adplayers.ro/articol/-11/Maggi-pump-twice-as-much-557.html
[8] http:// www.capital.ro
[9] http://www.adacademy.ro
THE NEUROMARKETING – AN INSTRUMENT
OF THE TRADITIONAL MARKETING
TECHNIQUES
Cristina BURGHELEA*
Abstract: The human emotion characterized from a commercial point of
view is perceived as a limitative message whose focus is the product. The tridimension
of the emotion meets the message which determines the spread of
the information and need to consume and acquire. So, the emotional essence
of the one who decides the consuming determines a pressure which is
reflected in the promoting of the product. The need to use a product
determines the interfingering between the two sciences neurology and
marketing and thus resulting the neuromarketing. The neuromarketing
appeared from the need to sustain a decision by all possible means when its
pressure is a way over the ability of a decision maker to confront failure.
The advertising messages will no longer regard the reason or emotional side
of the consumer which leaves room to “escape”, but will regard directly the
process is of the brain, onto which most of the times, the human being has
no control over, but can simulate a credibility of a message received and
can interpret in the same time those erosions which “bother”.
Keywords: product; consumer; advertising; promotion; neuromarketing.
1. Introduction
The traditional marketing starts from an innovating idea but in the
same time with the traditionalist predominance: that every product can be
launched on the market even the need to acquire that product is not the
marginally determined. They refer to the marginal need through the fact
that the consumer must be determined by a superior or inferior limit of the
acquiring thinking of not only an innovative product but also a useful one.
The need to use the products is not determined by a soul individual but by
a collectivity of individuals who can influence the desire to acquire of each
other but also the assimilation of the idea “to have”.
Traditional marketing started from the paradigm death through
adequate promoting activities any products can be launched on the market
regardless if the consumers need it or not, regardless if the products is
* Hyperion University, 169 Calea Calarasilor, St., Bucharest-Romania
168
viable or not. The result is that even at present about 95% of the new
launch products have a life expectancy of a maximum of six months even
if they had an advertising campaign to impose them as an image and as an
idea of the existence of what will eventually be thought as an “absolute
product”. That is why the paradigm has been changed and modern marketing
considers that only the identification and satisfying the needs and
desires of clients is the way towards success; sex acts which actually shows
a superior limit that the necessity vector can reach but also an inferior one
up until which the shadow of failure leads to unsatisfying the desires of
the client.
Only that this new paradigm is difficult to transpose into practice
because up until now the information linked with the desires and needs, the
evaluation criteria and the decision-making strategy have been collected
through techniques subjected to great errors.1 Approximately 95% of the
process is leading to the satisfying of consumers are developed at an
unconscious level, while the traditional investigation methods (focus groups,
interviews etc.) are concentrated on the conscious, reasonable elements of
perceiving and elaborating the reaction to them. This way information
alteration is introduced, of which psychology and sociology are aware, but
not those who pay the actual studies.
The conscience perception of the products is determined by the
necessity but also by the need of novelty, which acts like an inhibitor but is
in fact the information which can be altered, and the vows becoming only a
tangent with the aware element generating unhappiness at an informational
reception level.
For example, in focus groups the opinion of a group appears, and the
opinions are polarized around two positions (for example for and against a
product), most of the people tending to accept without a critical analysis
the opinion expressed by the person with the most resonance.
Creating the interface of a product to manipulate a mass of people is
very easy to accomplish because the starting point is “the unconscious”
which can be maneuvered so as its own opinion to complete and even
identify itself with the opinion of the others.
Another phenomenon is the predisposition to risk, the opinion of the
group becoming more radical than that of the people taken separately,
because a sum of opinions forms a whole and represents a force while the
individual opinion doesn’t have the orientation nor the characteristic a
mass opinion has.
1 Chief Executive September 2006, No. 9, Daniel Bichis, The key to the Consumer’s
Mind, page 39
169
In addition there is a tendency to identify with a social image which
makes the participants respond according to what they think the interviewer
would like to hear. That is why a change of the communicational roads
between the products and the client is imposed, and even creating new
ideas which generate solutions.
The quantum of solutions leads to the appearance of “salvaging ideas”,
which can be enounced like so: in order to make the products be bought it is
necessary to create them according to the unconscious needs and desires of
consumers, and during the whole promoting, buying and using processes
nice emotional experiences to be created for the customers. The experiences
had at an emotional level are those obtained by each consumer through
identifying, observing but in the same time through a great influencing of
the subconscious we does specifically determines need to acquire the unique
quality in acquiring products. The emotional phenolmenon is more and more
emphasized, but also it is more and more manipulated by an overwhelming
majority of those promoting based first of all on the characteristics of the
superior a limit of human emotion, emotion created on certain stimuli which
can lead to the appearance of chain reactions.
This means transferring the emphasize from traditional to modern
elements, from reasonable to emotional ones, from conscious to unconscious
ones – this being possible only by applying the neuromarketing.
2. The neuromarketing phenomen
The neuroscience exists for many years. Often it has been misunderstood
and sometimes even mistaken with some practices. Its principles are
tested in business through its abilities to influence the decision of consumers,
decision which can be influenced anyway more or less by external or
internal factors present at the level of each human activity.
The appearance of this technique started many controversies. The
skeptics think that this is a way to manipulate consumers, while others
think that neurosciences are fascinating.
Invented at Harvard in the mid ’90s by Professor Gerry Zaltman the
neuromarketing is a combination between two sciences, neurology and
marketing, through which the instruments used by the first one initially
only for medical interest, are now being used in advertising purposes. The
neuromarketing appeals to the technology of transmitting images through
magnetic resonance – MRI, technology used to detect brain tumors, but
which allows reading the way the brain receives, processes and interprets
various images presented to it.
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The term neuromarketing designates using the identification techniques
of the brain mechanisms to understand the consumers’ behavior, in
order to optimize the marketing strategies. Answers at the eyes’ (in ECT) or
the brain’s level (especially through EEG and fMRI) are being monitored
to determine the way the consumer perceives, evaluates and reacts to the
stimulant represented by an advertising message, a product or a service.
This way one can find out how the human brain responds to a very
advertising message, and marketing personnel can their facts their options
to popularize a brand. The impact of the message on the brain represents in
fact the key to open a Pandora’s Box. The accomplishment of this mechanism
can lead to increasing sales and most of all to creating a new
perspective and orientation at a sales developing level. This can be done
with the help of some consumers’ representatives who will be presented
some images while they are introduced in a machine and subjected to some
radio magnetic fluxes.
The fragmentation of mass communication can become a force which
added can create an overwhelming impact and can determine just the same
fragmentation of the way consumers react. Implicitly, great corporations
look for means as precise as possible to target the advertising message.
Advertising is not lights in the old days – you take a products and
state is the best on the market and then determine the individuals by
different means to acquire it. Now you must know your target audience,
carefully studying his behavior, but most of all interact with the necessities
of the client, determining him to “choose” you. But the way can now best
the consumer, that people whom a product or service addresses to, is that
of going straight to the source, more accurate... to the brain. That’s the way
one can find out in a relatively short time the behavior of the buyers, their
desire to acquire unique products, and the advertising campaign can be
changed on the way to have a more certain and overwhelming impact on
those who determine the survival on the market.
The desire for affirmation but also the need significantly determined
to conquer a certain target audience, led to the appearance of strategies and
the advertising companies’ level which have started to invest massively in
brain studies, studies which have led without intention to the innovating
concept of neuromarketing.
The neuromarketing tries to find new breaches on the market, tries to
understand and obviously to influence the consumer, tries to develop
managerial strategies which can influence the great mass of those who
significantly determined can reduce the major impact of the losses at an
emotional level. Those who try to find interdependency between the
consumer and his emotional development are based now on many recently
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developed procedures: imaging with magnetic resonance, from which
result all kinds of images with brain reactions to different stimuli.
In the figure presented below are presented the main techniques used in
neuromarketing which follow either the activity in the profound structures of
the brain (fMRI and PET), or in the surface ones (EEG and MEG). These
techniques can resemble open windows to the interior of the brain, which
allow registering to modification of its functioning during the interaction of
the consumer with the tested product. The obtained information allow
choosing even more efficiently the need for a product, the type of advertising
message, the form it is transmitted in, the conceited to elements of the
products or packaging, the delimitation of the price categories used etc.
For now some methods are less accessible, taking into account costs
but also of obligating the subjects to find themselves in an environment
very different from the usual one, environment which can lead to the
detaching of an emotional collapse and the failure of the used technique
(especially PET and fRMI).
That is why they will probably be used especially for the fundament of
some studies, to detect some stimuli, based on which the obtained results can
be interpreted better, for example, by associating the EEG with the ECT.
Following the direction of the book
(ECT) – 1990
The direction of the look is registered
and the areas it focuses on our
indicated.
Functional magnetic resonance
images (fMRI) – 1990
Identifying the activity of the brain
simultaneously in several regions.
Tomography with anti electrons emission (PET) – 1970
The intensity of the metabolism and the outflow of the
blood in the brain.
Axial computerized tomography(CAT/CT) – 1970
This technique generates images of the body organs.
Magneto-head x-ray (MEG) – 1960
During this procedure that is recorded the activity and the inhibition
of neuron cells in the brain.
Electro- head x-ray (EEG) – 1920
This procedure shows that during different activities modifications of the electrical potential
of the brain are registered and the time needed to process a stimulus can be measured.
172
The need to be sold and the need to be known makes each products
try to interact with the consumer. The product is the one who opens the
window towards the inside of the human brain with the help of the need
but also the desire to acquire it. There, at a neuronal level one can observe
a modification of the functional activity during the interaction between the
consumer and different types of products. Choosing these techniques only
enhances the efficiency of the sales and the actual message becomes a
collective hypnosis. The actual connectivity is the one who should have
been effectively determined and stimulated to acquire but also to choose
more or less strategic pivot products. Up until now the marketing solutions
were limited to interact methods of reading our thoughts and feelings.
These noticed how and how much we bought according to the increase or
decrease of prices. An absolutely necessary pivot in marketing development
in general is poll approach. But they aren’t always exact; first of all,
because the people don’t always say what they think or do. That is why
traditional researches are much more intuitive and lack perspective. Then
the fidelity cards were invented. But not even this method could attain a
complete and relevant image, Because not every consumer accepts to be in
a database in exchange for some very low discounts.
Even from the first appearances on the market of the neuromarketing
concept one could observe that the consumer identified himself with the
image of the products and he was more and more tented to say that the
product is exactly like him. The studies performed show that the engine of
the commerce is represented actually by the conclusions reached in the
interactions between neurology and marketing, meaning the association
between the self image and the individual knowledge of each of us.
“Even from the first attempts of Professor Gerry Zeltman from
Harvard University performed in the ’90s, the neuromarketing attracted the
attention of the great companies and found itself a lot of applications.
Following the model first met in genetic engineering and pharmaceutical
research there is a very close collaboration between the great investors and
university laboratories involved in this kind of research.”2 Here are some
of the main developing fields:
3. The competitive advantage of using neuromarketing
The marketing world has always searched for an answer to that
question: to what degree the quality of the product, even recognized by the
consumers, represents a source of competitive advantage. The most
2 Chief Executive September 2006, No. 9, Daniel Bichis, The key to the Consumer’s
Mind, page 40
173
authentic example was offered by the competition between Coca-Cola and
Pepsi Cola. In order to delimitate very well its target market but also to
increase his market share, Pepsi launched in the ‘70s the campaign called
The Pepsi Challenge following which a series of tests were performed in
supermarkets and mini markets where the consumers were asked to decide
which of the two beverages was tastier. Without knowing what beverages
it was about, but most of all focusing on quality 57% of the participants
chose Pepsi and only 43% chose Coca-Cola. These results were intensely
exploitted from an advertising point of view and to prepare the sales force,
but the effect regarding the increase of the market share was insignificant.
Later on an experiment was performed through which the activity of
different areas of the brain was measured with the help of the fMRI when
the subjects came into contact with the two products. The obtained results
were pretty relevant and brought one more time on the first plane the idea
that the existence of neuromarketing and the company’s motivation to
develop their activity in this sense:
• When they didn’t know what beverages it was about, 75% of the
subjects preferred Pepsi, the beverage which activated stronger the
area of the brain which corresponds to the sensation of
satisfaction, of sensorial pleasure;
• When they knew what beverages they tasted, the report was reversed
and for 75% of the people tested Coca-Cola determined the
activity of the area of the brain which responds for valuable judgments
and reason and the one containing the emotional memory.
The experiment shows that the brand image produces the arousing of
some emotions which can become stronger than the direct effect of that
product. It is a demonstration of the reality of the statement that “the products
are created in the factory and the brand is created in the mind of the consumer
and is the one who gives the power and the motivation to success”.
For 30 years the obstinacy with which the consumers continued to
buy a products they now is less tastier than that of the direct competitor
was an enigma, explained through a mysterious “branding effect” which
couldn’t be decomposed in elements to be repeated what could be analyzed
and may be rethought as a future strategy.
The neuromarketing is a revolutionary concept which boomed in the
United States and which recently became known in Europe. A recent study
for formed at Daimler Chrysler showed that the “reward centers” in men’s
brains were activated by sports cars in the same way the response to alcohol
or drugs.
If a study were performed in our country based on the messages in
election campaigns one would notice the fact that in most cases “the brain”
174
of the people masses responds differently, and the image about each
candidate is perceived as a whole which is individualized in individual
accomplishment.
The image is formed in the mind of the information consumer and is
developed in the superior limit of the desire to succeed by voting the best
candidate and thus creating, at a certain time, more or less, a mass hypnosis.
4. Maximizing the impact of advertising
Researchers have proposed a model of the human brain constructed out
of three super posed structures; each of them specialized on certain functions:
• The R complex (reptilian) or the primitive brain, controls the body
and decides very rapidly the strategy we use (we act, we retreat or
we wait), to ensure the satisfying of fundamental needs (physiological,
sexual, security and territory defense etc.);
• The limbic system for the emotional brain, associated with emotions,
feelings attention, general attitude, usual memory (the
recalling of events), the immunity and hormonal balance, the relationships
with the others; its decisions refer to the pleasure or non
pleasure we associate with that situation;
• The neo-cortex or the rational brain, which analyzes and solves the
problems, uses the language and logic, constructs rational memories
(of the materials studied for an exam type) and leads the creative
thinking; its decisions refer to sticking to the rules and previous
experiences, convictions and personal values, self image.
Primary instincts
Quick reactions
Defense and retreat actions
Orienting towards winning
Analysis
Evaluation
Logic
Creative
thinking
The rational
brain
The limbic
system
The reptilian
brain
Emotions
Memory
Learning through
experience
Focus
Leisure/Pain
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In short one can say that in the face of a product the rational brain
evaluates, the emotional one senses, and the primitive one decides what we
have to do. We are aware only of the results of the reasonable evaluation
and partially on the effect on the emotional state. If nor the basic reactions
or emotions are involved the advertising message is simply ignored. That is
why, in order to have an effect, advertising is addressed first of all to the
emotional and primitive brains which it has to determine to open the
channel of focus which transmits the information the words the rational
brain too.
The automobile company Daimler Chrysler financed an experiment
which wanted to establish the types of automobile men want. The result
itself was not expected, preferences being for about 2/3 of sports automobiles,
about 25% of limousines and the rest for compact class.
The important fact was that in this test it was shown that sports
automobiles activate strongly an area of the primitive brain initially considered
as being involved in making decisions linked to vital elements
(appetizing food, attractive and available sexual partner). Activating that
area usually leads to blind gestures, the man acting instinctively to obtain
that trophy. Also the neuronal rewards circuits are activated which thus
produce a profound emotional state, the rational brain is preconditioned to
supply justifications and solutions to obtain that product. There’s nothing
new, off a mobile dealers will say, as they know very well the affect the
presence of a beautiful lady by the side of the car she offers has. But this
finding allowed redrawing the bodies of the limousines and of the compact
class so was to determine on their own a very motivated answer. And it
lead to the re-conceiving of advertising messages and of the presentations
of the sales agents followed by an increase of sales up to 40%.
Another study demonstrated that the act of buying by a person can
even be “predicted” observing with the help of imaging through magnetic
resonance the activation of neuronal circuits. The great companies are so
interested in these evolutions of science that they act many times in a
coalition. But in the same time, the collaborations with the laboratories of
cognitive sciences are done with maximum discretion, out of the fear of
arousing by accident negative reactions of the public opinion.
In our country a special impact which can be the basis for the presence
of neuromarketing was the advertising campaign Maggi developed in
2005. It had a special resonance by “optimizing” the memorizing of an
advertising campaign according to the repeating of the messages and their
diffusion in many environments of mass communication. The idea was so
successful, and the transmitted message had such a special resonance and
the target public level that the mother company Nestle Rumania decided to
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renew the Maggi campaign in 2006 with the slogan “The Maggi heart
comes back home twice as precious!”
Transmitting information repeatedly through these innovative “ideas”
to persuade the consumers to make the ad in the benefit of the firm with a
low cost, represented by the value of the awards given following the
campaign represents an absolute success of the presence of neuromarketing
on the Romanian market. So, the message seen by the consumer where ever
he was determined the motivation to buy and the resonance of the success
made the neuronal circuits activates the stimulating centers of necessity.
The stimulated envy by the potential winnings determined the motivation
at a neuron-psychical level of the population, so 85%3 Of the Serbian
population one it to receive the promotional Maggi flyer, a percentage
never reached by another developing campaign until present. The frenzy of
this campaign brought out the imagination of the individual to find as
visible as possible places to promote Maggi hearts. The general desire for a
possible daily 2000 euros earning stimulated the subconscious of the
consumer thus generating a passing state of happiness which could only be
satisfied through that visible competing to acquire as many Maggi hearts as
possible which covered without much effort a significant part of the “urban
windows”. The success of the campaign was overwhelming because the
stimuli of the mass hypnosis were detached and all that one called product
individualization became a initiating factor of the need “to have”.
But studies were performed over the Internet to and it was proven that
the accuracy of the anticipation of the buyer behavior is of 77%. The exact
purpose in this case was setting the way a certain site had to be constructed
and what kind of contents it should’ve had. With the help of biometrics
sensors have been recorded all the reactions of those analyzing a certain
site: the conductivity of the skin, the pulse, the respiration, the mimic and
gestures.
The lack of free time and the human need quickly led to conceiving
the sites for virtual stores. The consumer analyses following a documenttation
and decides what to acquire. The visual impact tangent with the
desire to acquire is the initiating stimuli of virtual madness.
On the Internet technology has evolved very quickly, the need to
know the behavior of the customer led to the apparition of “pop-up ads” –
advertising windows which appear when visiting a certain site. It has gone
so far that the advertisers wanted to know which area of the screen we look
at more often, as well as the area we access most often with clicks.
The financial force of these businesses attracted very many hackers
which have developed special viruses: adware and spyware. These viruses
3 http://adplayers.ro/articol/-11/Maggi-pump-twice-as-much-557.html
177
are in fact programs which correlated to the information obtained through
Pop-ups, which download automatically promotional materials posted in
the already learned areas through ”screen knowing”.
The chaotic receiving of spam messages leads to the initiation of the
desire to acquire especially by stimulating the desire to try out a product you
receive a lot of emails about. The advertisers are based on the mass effect,
by sending as many spam’s as possible to which very few will answer.
Seeing the message initiates at a neuronal level a simulation of the
desire to acquire and thus no a subtle manipulation of the consumer it is
strides actually to consciously limit his memory.
In a very close future the accident factor on the Internet will be
forgotten and the contents will go to the users already “analyzed” by the
consumers and then adapted for them.
For the specialists in neuromarketing the self image and the self
knowing of each of us represent the white gold of a perfect alchemy: the
transformation of the self love in the low of four the other self which is
transposed in an advertising target. The consumer must tremble, vibrates
and feel an overwhelming desire to acquire a product; the comfort of having
a relative stability and being dominated by the continuum desire to acquire.
The subconscious memorizing mechanisms are those who initiate the
actions leading to the evaluation of the state of satisfaction of the masses.
”The intimate knowledge of the consumer’s brain can only incite the
enterprises and their advertising deputies to escape from the spaces
normally allocated for communications. The conditions of the receptivity
of a brand are judged more favorably as the “target” is not actually aware it
is regarded. It is what the rapid development of the advertisement explains,
this hybrid between advertising and amusement”.4
5. Motivation through advertisements
The traditional evaluation methods of the efficiency of advertisements
(re-memorizing the spot, recognition tests and measuring the attitude
towards the product or brand) is based exclusively on what the subjects
report – so it is limited to the conscious memory. The purpose of the advertising
investment is to determine people to buy their own promoted
products or services, not to understand their advantages or to like the story
of the spot. The essential difference between emotion and reason is the fact
that emotions make us act, while reason only makes us evaluate. And when
4 Le monde diplomatique, Marie Benilde, Advertising Is Involmed in Neurosciences,
November 2007, pag. 3
178
we talk about motivation, we almost exclusively refer to the emotional and
the reptilian brains.
The advertising message with an intensively emotional content
activates imagination, people having the tendency to verify in what way
the product can satisfy them. The result is that after such an imaginative
test the information is memorized as if the experience would have actually
occurred and activates decisional elements in the primitive brain. There are
some clear differences between the answer of the brain towards the
reasonable and emotional spots. The latter activate strongly the areas of the
brain implicated in establishing social relationships and making decisions –
exactly the type of answer any company which invests in TV advertising
wants. Using the neurosciences represents the most important progress in
the field of market research in the last 25 years.
For the moment a translation of the neurological data in the specific
marketing language is being done, so as for the information to be used by
those who know the other elements of the marketing mix.
6. Conclusions
The neuromarketing offers a multitude of additional information, but
it can’t offer any kind of information linked to the behavior of consumers.
The second limit is that of the price and technology. For the moment, the
PET and fMRI (the strongest) type techniques can only be applied in the
laboratory, and the rental price of the equipment is significant. But it can
be estimated, like has happened with a lot other technologies that the
appearance of real demand for such equipment for other purposes than
medical ones will lead to a rapid decrease of the cost and dimensions of the
equipment.
At last, it mustn’t be ignored the reaction of consumers’ associations
which fight for the limiting of the freedom of advertising agents and
market studying companies to obtain information about the way the
consumers elaborate their decisions. It is a reaction determined by fear of
the possible latter manipulation by identifying an “acquisition button” to
transform them into certain victims of the advertising messages. One can
observe that: even a reduced increase of the efficiency of advertising leads
to a boom of some diseases such as: obesity, anorexia or type 2 diabetes.
But such reactions fueled by the hunger for sensational of the media
are not justified.
What neuromarketing can actually do is improve the way the companies
create and promote products so as to make them more interesting,
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attractive and valuable for the consumers. The objective of neuromarketing
is to change the behavior of companies which can easily pass over the
decision of the individual and not over the behavior of the consumers.
At least this is what the promoters of neuromarketing sustain, the
market studying technique which appeals to psychiatric instruments to
guarantee the advertising message will permanently and efficiently stay in
the mind of the audience.
REFERENCES
[1] Miller, E. K. Cohen, J. D. (2001), An integrative theory of prefrontal cortex function,
Annual Review of Neuroscience, pp. 167-202
[2] Zaltman, G. (2003), How Customers Think: Essential insights into the mind of the
market. Boston, USA, Ed. Harvard Business School Press
[3] http://www. chiefexecutive.net
[4] http://www.sfin.ro
[5] http://www.capital.ro
[6] http://www.monde-diplomatique.ro
[7] http://adplayers.ro/articol/-11/Maggi-pump-twice-as-much-557.html
[8] http:// www.capital.ro
[9] http://www.adacademy.ro
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