Neuromarketing
The wizardry behind ‘Brainfluencing’ Consumers
41 Shades of Blue
A few years back, then Google’s VP Marissa Mayer made the design team test 41 different shades of blue to decide which one to use for Google’s navigation bar. For two weeks, different shades of blue were shown to 2.5% of the visitors and the number of clicks was noted in each case. This data-driven analysis earned Google $200 million in ad revenue right out of the blue.
Google’s analysis was ridiculed and many said it would be next to impossible for anyone to discern such subtle differences in color. Well, they were right. And wrong.
The catch is that the consumers make 95% of their decisions subconsciously. So, even if we can’t, our brain can distinguish between the various shades of blue. This doesn’t just stop at colors. Our brain has an inherent natural bias that drives most of our decisions in daily life. We associate ourselves not only with the physical attributes of the product but, also the emotions behind it.
The New Coke
The release of the new Coke shows us a lot about this science of consumer decisions. In 1985, Coca-Cola saw its sales dipping. So, the Coca-Cola Company launched the new Coke whose taste was preferred by over 200,000 consumers in taste tests. The new Coke was expected to reclaim the company’s market share. But, there was a huge plot twist. The public reception was ice cold.
The following weeks after the launch was a nightmare for the company. The company’s offices were flooded with calls from dissatisfied customers. The new Coke’s launch generated consumer hate like never before. This baffled the Coca-Cola company. Were the 200,000 testers all wrong?
No, they were not. Until then, Coca-Cola was seen as an old classic. The company had a great emotional connection with its consumers. Its advertisements had always portrayed this. But, the consumers felt that the launch of the new Coke had severed this connection. The Coca-Cola company realized its mistake. It had downplayed the importance of the emotional connection with its consumers. They had instead shifted their focus towards making it taste better, not connect better. Over the years, companies have begun realizing that subtle thoughts and emotions of consumers can unconsciously change their experience with the product.
What is Neuromarketing?
Neuromarketing is a field of marketing that employs Neuroscience into marketing. This involves tracking the brain’s behavior and activity with a multitude of technologies such as fMRI, EEG, eye-trackers, etc. in revealing the consumer buying-decisions.
While traditional marketing answers questions like “What consumers buy?”, neuromarketing aims to answer the question “Why do consumers buy what they buy?”.
Neuromarketing can be very subtle yet powerful.
Why does Neuromarketing matter?
We make about 30,000 decisions on a daily basis. In today’s hyper-competitive industry it’s difficult to sell products to people when there already exists so many substitute products in the market. Neuromarketing has succeeded where traditional marketing failed. According to a survey, 9/10 products fail, and billions of marketing waste. Neuromarketing provides unparalleled insight into minds.
What people say and what they actually do are often two completely different things. Where existing user research methods address consciously prepared reactions, neuromarketing deals with subconscious behavioral reactions. Mouse tracking can show us where a user went on a website, but it can’t tell us how they felt about the experience. Surveys and questionnaires give us some insight into user experience, but are the answers reliable if people just say what they think the researcher wants to hear?
The way we interact with technology is constantly evolving, which is why it’s so important that your research techniques follow suit with fresh, innovative methods.
The Future
#1. Accessibility:
Neuromarketing is steadily becoming the gold standard in market research in developed markets, specifically in Europe and the US. According to experts, neuromarketing will become more widespread across the developing world as local companies begin to realize the potential of this growing field and begin demanding this level of research and consumer insight within their home markets.
#2. Scalability:
Consumer Neuroscience technologies will become more cost-effective and as a result more scalable. These technologies will also become integrated into everyday life as different technologies converge. As an example, we’ve already seen the likes of Apple acquiring the Facial Coding platform Emotient, so we could very well have Facial Coding embedded into all Apple products going forward — so your MacBook could be recommending you products and services based on your emotional state in the future. This will provide marketers with unprecedented access to real-time biometric data about their consumer's experiences, which can then be used to make more informed business decisions.
#3. Automation:
Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Big Data will have an enormous impact on the field of Neuromarketing in the years to come. We’re already seeing the rise of predictive techniques that reduce the need for larger sample sizes, some of which don’t even require human respondents. This increase in automation will increase both the speed and accuracy of Neuromarketing insights going forward.
Conclusion
Conclusively, to wrap it up I would say neuromarketing has come a long way since its inception in 1990 by G. Zaltzman. It is changing the field of marketing as we know it and providing invaluable insights to organizations, in the process, allowing them to reach a wider audience. Neuromarketing can provide companies with valuable information, unlike traditional strategies. With the help of neuromarketing tools, they will know how to design products to look, function, and feel before they are even ready to hit the market, minimizing risk and maximizing all resources.
With the means of neuromarketing, we can find out how the consumers behave and make decisions while accessing the unconscious emotions, thoughts, feelings, and desires which trigger us the purchase decision. Neuromarketing can help us understand how unconscious mind processing influences the decision to purchase, providing a better understanding of the consumers’ emotions, thoughts, feelings, needs, and motivation in relation to the marketing products.
An article by Sandeep Batchala & Rafe Moin (The BITS Hyderabad Consulting Group)
