Probing Unconscious Purchasing
” … neuromarketers, a nascent group of researchers who use techniques from neuroscience to analyze people’s responses to products and promotions.
Neuromarketing’s raison d’être derives from the fact that the brain expends only 2 percent of its energy on conscious activity, with the rest devoted largely to unconscious processing. Thus, neuromarketers believe, traditional market research methods — like consumer surveys and focus groups — are inherently inaccurate because the participants can never articulate the unconscious impressions that whet their appetites for certain products.
If pitches are to succeed, they need to reach the subconscious level of the brain, the place where consumers develop initial interest in products, inclinations to buy them and brand loyalty, says A. K. Pradeep, the founder and chief executive of NeuroFocus, a neuromarketing firm based in Berkeley, Calif. …
Proponents of the technique … say neuromarketing is simply a more accurate barometer of consumer response than traditional focus groups.
… SKEPTICS … note that the technique has yet to prove that brain-pattern responses to marketing correlate with purchasing behavior.”
See article at: NYT 14Nov10: “Making Ads That Whisper to the Brain”
