Society & Culture - Posted by Karl Bates-Duke on Thursday, March 4, 2010 12:43 - 5 Comments 
(2 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)
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(2 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5) Loading ...Marketers can (literally) read your mind
PET image of a normal brain, perhaps contemplating snack foods. Marketing professionals are turning to neuroscience to study consumer reactions. The approach may prove to be an affordable way for marketers to gather information that was previously unobtainable, or that consumers themselves may not even be fully aware of, says Dan Ariely. (Courtesy: US Health and Human Services/Wikimedia Commons)
DUKE (US)—A new generation of marketing experts may be able to test a product’s appeal while it is still being designed using advanced techniques to see the human brain in action.
So-called “neuromarketing” takes the tools of modern brain science, like the functional MRI, and applies them to the somewhat abstract likes and dislikes of customer decision-making.
Though this raises the specter of marketers being able to read people’s minds (more than they already do), neuromarketing may prove to be an affordable way for marketers to gather information that was previously unobtainable, or that consumers themselves may not even be fully aware of, says Dan Ariely, the James B. Duke professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University.
In a perspective piece appearing online in the journal Nature Reviews Neuroscience, Ariely and Gregory Berns of Emory University offer tips on what to look for when hiring a neuromarketing firm, and what ethical considerations there might be for the new field. They also point to some words of caution in interpreting such data to form marketing decisions.
Neuromarketing may never be cheap enough to replace focus groups and other methods used to assess existing products and advertising, but it could have real promise in gauging the conscious and unconscious reactions of consumers in the design phase of such varied products as “food, entertainment, buildings and political candidates,” Ariely says.
Duke University news: www.dukenews.duke.edu
5 Comments
Ranulf
I think,this looks too much like 1984.
Maybe,you should consider the novels of “the golden kazoo”.
“Gladiator-at-law”,and,possibly,
“The Demolished Man”for insights on how KKorporocracy=Mussolini styled government,complete with “Magnus,Robot-Fighter”kinds of ‘psycho-probes’.
Maybe,”physical control of the mind”?by Sergeant?
offers an insight on how far down the slippery slope of pursuasion=advertiseing we have “progressed’ since Eric Blair wrote “1948″.
(ie:”Geo.Orwell”,psud.,”1984″.)
Yes there is research along the lines of determining if you are lying by looking at brain scans. There was also an article not too long ago about research into using brain scans to tell what you believe, as in if you believe in God or not. Imagine that power in the hands of the Spanish inquisition. It’s becoming a scary 1984 world out there …
shashank vaid
Neuromarketing brings in another rush of information to the ever developing science of the consumer. Despite attempts to break down decision related information into clearly separable rational elements, the critical last mile still remains fuzzy intuition.
I like Professor Ariely’s suggestion, however, the key lies in whether marketers are also able to concurrently engineer products that integrate such information.
Shashank Vaid
Duke Fuqua
interesting research. if that is so i believe the prediction holds true for many areas rather than just marketing.
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In another context this method could be used as a lie detector. Your own brain would say if you were lying. I am sure someone has already considered this.