Inside the Buyer's Brain: The Science of Neuromarketing

Introduction

Have you ever thought about why some brands feel more relevant to you than others? When you come across a brand while shopping, you may suddenly choose that brand's product over others instinctively or fairly quickly.

One Indian brand that does this extremely well is Amul. It allows us to connect on an emotional level, through nostalgia, humor, sarcasm, and by referencing our own culture. Amul is also one of the few brands we trust that sells dairy. In India, there are over 600 dairy brands, and Amul is one of the top three brands across nearly every household.

This happens because of a subtle marketing approach that includes neuroscience and psychology, which the brand uses for its customers to refer to and connect with the brand much more easily. Here, let us learn more about Neuromarketing.

What is neuromarketing in simple terms?

Neuromarketing combines neuroscience, psychology, and marketing. It incorporates scientific knowledge about the human brain to understand what attracts people to a product, advertisement, or brand.

Rather than just reporting what they like (after all, we may not even know why we made a choice), neuromarketing studies what the brain automatically does, such as the first place your eyes go to on a package, the emotions you feel when you view an advertisement, or how your brain reacts when seeing an identified logo.

What is the purpose of Neuromarketing?

At its essence, neuromarketing is simple: to understand how the brain responds to marketing messages, products, and experiences to shape better social connections between brands and their audience.

Traditional marketing relies on surveys or focus groups, but the truth is, we don’t always know why we make the choices we do. Neuromarketing replaces this missing piece by identifying those hidden, subconscious drivers. Recognizing patterns of brain activity, eye movement, or even heart rate, companies are able to see what is actually engaging, emotionally charged, and motivating.

• Designing ads that genuinely engage.

• Creating thoughtful, appealing product packaging that pops off shelves.

• Using science to reduce guesswork in campaigns.

• For customers that lead to: More relevant and engaging advertising messaging.

• Products and experiences that feel easier, enjoyable, and intuitive.Clarity, less clutter, and more relevant conversation.

For brands that translate into:

In other words, neuromarketing acts as a tool to help brands leverage the brain's language and move marketing away from simply selling to a more engaging and more sophisticated human connection.

What are the tools and methods used in Neuromarketing?

Neuromarketing is the fusion of neuroscience technology and psychological tactics in order to understand how consumers actually respond to marketing. Instead of just asking consumers what they are thinking, these technologies demonstrate what the brains and bodies are saying.

1. Brain Imaging Techniques
• fMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging): This method examines brain activity based on blood flow. This method enables marketers to see areas of the brain that are activated while watching ads, logos, or products. fMRI examples include testing whether an ad activates the "reward center" in the brain. 
• EEG (Electroencephalography): EEG uses sensors placed on the scalp to assess brain waves. EEG gives information about a participant's emotional engagement, attention, and excitement. For example, an EEG could be used to measure how engaged a participant is to accompany your understanding of how effective an ad is.

2. Biometric Measurements

• Eye Tracking: Eye tracking refers to monitoring where people look, as underlined by viewing length statistics. Eye tracking is advantageous for website layout testing, packaging testing, or store displays.
• Facial Expression Coding: Facial expression coding utilizes artificial intelligence tools that analyze microexpressions in addition to determining emotions associated with joy, surprise, or frustration. 
• Galvanic Skin Response (GSR): Revisions to the conversation with someone regarding discomfort in measuring small changes in sweat level of the skin to indicate emotional arousal. For instance, a simple example may consider using a movie trailer to demonstrate.  
3. Behavioral Methods
• Implicit Association Tests (IAT): Assesses how quickly people identify a brand/product with associated positive or negative feelings.
• Response Time Tests: People can respond quickly to measures of subconscious attitudes that may not emerge in traditional survey instruments.

How is Neuromarketing different from Traditional marketing?

Marketing has always involved understanding people, what they want, what they like, and even what makes them buy. Neuromarketing takes it a step further by looking directly into the brain and body to expose the insider influences behind our choices. 

Traditional marketing uses surveys, interviews, and focus groups as data. Consumers are asked to explain their preferences and choices. While Neuromarketing looks at a person's brain scans, does eye tracking, and biometrics, which measure involuntary and subconscious responses, that people can't frankly describe in words.

In traditional marketing, brands can only capture behaviour after the sale has happened, while in Neuromarketing, brands can study which parts of the brain are activated even before the decision is made.

Netflix: A Neuromarketing Case Study

How does Netflix use Neuromarketing?

Netflix extensively uses Neuromarketing in its platform. The color red is one such thing; color red is a symbol of strength, but it also creates a sense of urgency. This is why all the Call to Action buttons, in red color, which makes the consumers want to click on them in that instance. 

Netflix also uses A/B testing thumbnails, which involves creating multiple thumbnails for a show. This helps to determine which images are most attention-grabbing and are getting more clicks.

Netflix uses consumer data, like most-watched content, to give the consumer personalized suggestions. This gives the consumer a sense of satisfaction, making them feel good, also called the Brain Reward System.

What are the benefits of Neuromarketing?

• Neuromarketing does an in-depth dive into the customer's behaviour, like what causes one to make a decision.

• Neuromarketing data is more accurate and hence reliable. Asking consumers may not necessarily give us accurate answers, as someone might not say what they think.

• Neuromarketing relies on subconscious data, which is much more accurate.

• Neuromarketing helps a brand to create an emotional connection with its customers, which leads to much more effective branding.

What are the cons of Neuromarketing?

• Neuromarketing needs resources like equipment and experts, which could be quite expensive.

• There is a concern for ethics as to whether it is a breach of privacy and could also be misused for manipulation.

• Outcomes in the real world might differ, and we can get conflicting data. 

• Data is complex and takes time and skill to really analyze and interpret.

Conclusion:

Neuromarketing is the future of marketing. In today's world, consumers are less interested in spending time or money on brands that are not emotionally connected to them, whatever the reason. So, diving into the inner workings of consumer brands can provide a much better experience for the consumers. Neuromarketing not only helps brands it is also useful for the consumers.

Created by

J L Amritavarshini

Digital Marketing Intern

IPCS Global Trivandrum