Neuro-marketing: Should consumers be worried?

Neuro-marketing aims to understand the subconscious drives behind individuals’ buying decisions.

While the field is a powerful complement to traditional marketing techniques, many consumers worry that it violates their right to privacy.

In this article, I delve into neuro-marketing as a complement to behavioural economics. We consider its benefits and the concerns of this growing field of marketing.

Neuro-marketers use a range of tools to measure individuals’ motivations, preferences, and decisions — including brain-imaging tests such as FMRI and EEG, mobile eye-tracking, Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) and even facial coding. Targeting these subconscious aspects of decision-making can identify the emotions that drive 90–95% of consumer decision-making. Check out this 3-minute video on Coca-Cola purchases in spaza shops.

While these techniques are insightful, should consumers be worried? Let’s investigate.

BENEFITS

Neuro-marketing is a tool in a marketer’s repertoire that can enhance advertising’s effectiveness and can also be used to provide consumers with targeted products and services that will improve consumers lives. Providing people with targeted, relevant information also reduces the decision fatigue that reduces the quality of individuals’ purchasing decisions.

There is also growing evidence that shows that neuro-imaging techniques can create more effective public service announcements. For example, a study by researcher Emily Falk helped to show people’s true reactions to antismoking ads for adolescents.

CONCERNS

Revealing individuals’ true motives behind their purchasing decisions can be powerful. While this endows marketers with greater insight into the subconscious mind, many consumers fear that marketers will use these insights to violate their right to privacy. For example, in 2015 one of the main political parties in Mexico used neuro-marketing to learn more about voters’ interests. This was seen by the Mexican citizenry as a government agency trying to read their minds. The leader eventually had to promise that his party would revert to more “old-fashioned” methods (read more here).

Other concerns include companies using neuro-marketing to encourage bad behaviours such as trying to find out which ads will induce more teenagers to vape and promoting consumerism as consumer debt rises.

However, it turns out that many of the concerns about neuro-marketing are fallacies:

1.Only a small sample of people have their brains scanned or opt to provide hormone samples. Therefore, most people’s thoughts are their own.

2.The subjects in these studies provide their informed consent and agree to allow the researchers to use their data. This means that it is no less ethical than being involved in a focus group.

3.Neuro-marketing cannot fully influence what consumers buy because of the many other variables that also play a role in decision-making, such as: What kind of mood are you in? When did you last have a meal? Are your friends with you? How is the light pointed at the product?

However, consumer perceptions are important, and companies could face a breakdown in trust and reputation if they are not transparent and ethical about the use of neuro-marketing techniques.

Neuro-marketing is a powerful complement to traditional marketing techniques, but unethical use of these techniques can lead to consumer backlash. Therefore, companies should use it to gain insight, but ensure that they have an ethical framework for applying these techniques.