Neuromarketing seems to be a very redundant definition. All the decisions that people take in their entire lives result from an extremely complex logical process that takes place in our brain, which generates possible options or alternatives that are weighed in order to produce a final decision related to any possible area of our lives. Naturally, it includes our consumer decisions.
The marketing process is obviously highly attracted to these types of decisions. Our unique preferences are determined by these processes previously described, resulting in buying the red car instead of the blue one, watching the “horror film” in the place of the “action film” on Friday night, or preferring a hamburger franchise over another.
Hence, it is a fact that the marketing process has always tried to access these consumer decisions developed in our minds. The changing factor over time is which ways it has used to do it.
Neuromarketing is explained by Max Sutherland as an “applied extension of neuroscience”, implying the application of scanning technology to the human brain. Sutherland also states that it has evolved from studies of the pupils and tracking of the eyes movements while looking at advertisements, and also from the exploration of left and right brain processes.
Another very powerful tool from which marketing has benefited to gather information and to determine the possible behavior of consumers is data mining. According to Jason Frand, data mining is the “process of analyzing data from different perspectives and summarizing it into useful information… technically, is the process of finding correlations or patterns among dozens of fields in large relational databases”.
However, such a powerful and useful analytical resource may also has a very negative side. According to Leigh Goessl, the first issue is related to the invasion of privacy of consumers, creating complete profiles of individuals without their authorization, or even worse, without their awareness. Additionally, consumers may even run the risk of identity theft.
Also, Leigh Goessl states that laws have not been able to keep up with the fast pace of technology. Therefore, the most important limits for the gathering, processing and use of this data are the decisions of managers in every company.
Neuromarketing may sound shocking as we notice how people’s brains are scanned to look for reactions and responses to different ads and products. But, isn’t it just a step ahead in technology to predict consumer’s decisions?. How far will it keep going to make these predictions?. Which types of new regulations will it face?.
If we consider data mining as a predecessor of neuromarketing, maybe these questions may be answered by looking at the development of the former to this day.
