In recent years, as a result of the increased attention paid to the structure and functions of the brain and the technological advances that these studies have allowed, a variant of marketing called Neuromarketing has emerged.
In fact, there are already several and well-known companies that use this tool: among others, Coca Cola, Ford and Chrysler.
But how did this specialty arise and what does it really consist of? To understand it, you have to say something before.
Until recently we could only understand well the beginning and end of the act of consumption, but not the fundamental part in between. Specifically, consumer behavior was studied before acquiring a good or product; A series of hypotheses were drawn up and then these were confirmed or discarded if the act of purchase was carried out or not. What was left in the dark was the internal processing of the information, that is, what was happening in the consumer's mind, and this is what is changing with Neuromarketing.
In short, Neuromarketing is the application of neuroscience techniques to marketing stimuli, to understand how the brain "activates" when faced with such manifestations.
The best application of Neuromarketing is the prediction of consumer behavior, which is the biggest challenge that marketing has faced for years, that gap between mind and behavior. These discoveries will allow us to select the media format that works best, the development of ads that people remember best, and fundamentally how consumer behavior differs from what the methods used today tell us.
This neuroscience application includes the direct use of brain imaging, scanning, or other brain activity monitoring technologies to measure the subject's responses to specific products, packaging, advertising, or other marketing elements. In some cases, the brain's responses are not consciously perceived by the subject. Therefore, these data can be more revealing than self-reports, surveys or focus groups.
With such instruments behavioral samples, changes in brain reactions and even affective states are studied. The main instrument is Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI, for its acronym in English).
And here are some conclusions established by neuromarketers:
1. The purchase, contrary to what some think, is not a rational process, but in most cases it is relatively automatic and derives from unconscious forces.
2. In most cases, the process of selecting a good, service or product is relatively automatic and derives from habits and other unconscious forces among which one's own history, personality, neurophysiological characteristics and the physical context gravitate. social environment around us.
3. The emotional system (the oldest area of the brain) is the first force that acts on mental processes, therefore it determines the direction of purchase decisions.
As you can imagine, some criticism of these experiments has already appeared. The main one argues that if persuasion becomes so sophisticated, human freedom will be affected not only by brands and products, but also by politicians and authoritarian regimes. Without a doubt, the debate is open and the evolution of marketing is, equally, unstoppable.
