Neuromarketing: What You Need to Know

Neuromarketing is a branch of marketing that studies how purchasing decisions are influenced by irrational factors (reasons not directly related to the benefit received). For example, how colors, sounds, smells and cognitive distortions - traps of consciousness - affect buyers.

In a narrow sense, neuromarketing refers to marketing research with visualization of human physiological reactions: dilation of pupils, increased heart rate, or even activation of parts of the brain. In particular, tomographs and electroencephalography are used for this.

How does neuromarketing work?

Neuromarketing assumes that purchasing decisions are made subconsciously. At the same time, marketing activities can influence five main channels of human perception:

With the help of special equipment, you can literally see reactions to different stimuli - how attention was distributed, whether there were any emotions from the interaction and how strong they were.

As a rule, only large companies can afford neuromarketing research. They order research in special laboratories, or organize it themselves. Neuromarketing research is mainly carried out to understand how effective branding, product design, advertising, interaction with online services, and entertainment activities are. As Natalia Galkina, general director of the Neurotrend company, told RBC Trends, recently companies most often come to check how potential clients will react to a commercial, website and series, because many platforms have launched their own content production.

Advantages and disadvantages

Neuromarketing research allows manufacturers to build a more effective advertising campaign. The main advantages of the method:

1. Deep dive into the needs of the target audience at the instinct levels.
2. Rapid increase in profits, growth in sales, customer engagement and loyalty.
3. Effective promotion of a brand or product in a niche by creating the right message to the target audience.

The disadvantages of neuromarketing are also quite noticeable. That is why there is still debate about whether to use new techniques or not:

1. Problems with the ethical aspect of sales. Research into human physiological reactions to advertising often violates the principles of information confidentiality and privacy.
2. Manipulations with the consciousness of the target audience at the level of instincts. In fact, any modern advertising or communication is manipulation. The interlocutors influence each other in conversation, argue, and defend their positions. Advertising messages try to distinguish the product from competitors and present it as an indispensable solution.
3. Neuromarketing studies often result in controversial findings. For example, the results of studying the reactions of a focus group of 10-20 people cannot be applied to a larger number of people. They will simply be incorrect.

Examples of neuromarketing

Here are a few examples of the implementation of neuromarketing results in product advertising:

Ways to use neuromarketing

Everything listed below reveals what we can influence. You should not apply it all at once, so as not to create an overload in the audience and, as a result, rejection towards the product.

Visualization

Everything here is simple and clear: you need to evoke a certain range of emotions in a person through visuals. For this purpose, bright color palettes, non-standard elements, and strong emotions in the picture are used. That is, everything to catch the eye of a potential client.

An almost win-win way here is to use children in advertising, because with their spontaneity and “incompatibility” with adult topics, they can cause positive cognitive dissonance in the audience.

Let’s take a closer look at the colors that we describe and immediately show with a picture, so that you, dear readers of the blog, will also be inspired.

We specifically show only the color, and not the objects that have it. Let your perception itself complete the picture. It’s like a neural network, by God!

Red color

It makes the brain work, mobilizes it, and attracts attention. It’s not for nothing that the website kokoc.com has red in its corporate identity.

Orange color

It is believed that it increases the breathing rate and promotes uncontrollable joy. Remember your childhood, a whole plate of tangerines or the song “Chaifa” about the orange mood!

Yellow

Helps increase concentration. Objects of this color are remembered much better among others.

If you are a man and in the summer you see a long-legged blonde in a short yellow dress, know that it is the yellow color that will excite you! :)

Green color

Calms and pacifies. It’s not for nothing that we humans are so eager to get out into nature in the summer and admire the greenery!

Blue color

Gives a feeling of confidence and support, a sense of security and reliability. But if the blue goes into blue (I’m talking about the shade now), this can cause negativity.

Black color

Gives “expensiveness” and elegance to the product. The consumer gets a feeling of luxury from the product (naturally, if it itself and its packaging are made of expensive materials, and not thin and fragile black plastic). If you overdo it, it can cause gloomy emotions, feelings of hopelessness and a general reluctance to buy (have you seen a lot of black in the design of children's toys?).

Brown color

It is a favorite among conservative audiences. Remember the respectable gentlemen who choose tweed jackets, ties, boots and similar accessories of true gentlemen.

We've only looked at six colors, but there's already a lot of introductory information, right? This does not take into account shades, gradients, etc. We hope you believe that colors can also influence people’s desire to buy or not buy a product, as well as their habits.

Right now, at the time of writing these lines, I remembered an example with a store shelf on which there are packs of tea. My brain automatically codes yellow as Lipton, green as Greenfield, blue as Richard. Red - for example, like Tess.

The power of smell

Oh, if you can reach the buyer through smells... he's definitely yours!

Let's move a little away from commerce and into life. You will be pleased to communicate with your interlocutor if he smells delicious perfume (but not cloying, of course) or aftershave lotion. And you will experience the whole range of emotions in the minibus if an individual with a combination sits opposite you: fumes from the mouth and a body that has not been washed for three days.

Taste

A quick and accessible way for many manufacturers (any food product, yes!) to get a reaction from customers. You've seen cute girls with trays at the entrance to the shopping area in the supermarket. Either glasses of lemonade, or canapés with cheese, sausage and gherkins... that's all it is!

Such tastings (I haven’t mentioned alcohol yet, I’m correcting myself!) allow you to stand out from your competitors and increase your sales.

And the impact on taste is widely developed in fast food establishments and forces customers to chase the mystery that lies in the recipes for sauces and chicken of the same KFC.

Touch. Tactile sensations

Before we buy anything that we can pick up, we twirl and twirl these things in our hands. All this in order to evaluate the product with maximum accuracy. It’s not for nothing that in many technology stores you can work on a laptop, poke at a smartphone or tablet, even listen to certain headphones and stereo systems!

This should always be done if the seller is 100% responsible for the quality and serviceability of the product at the time of testing. You can expect that after such contact a purchase will be made.

Hearing

The effect on hearing, at a minimum, attracts attention (remember the loud-voiced guys and girls inviting us to the opening of a store), and at maximum, it encourages us to come in.

In grocery stores and fashion boutiques, music is played, always positive, invigorating and evoking pleasant emotions. If it’s fast, most likely it’s rush hour in the store and you need to buy, buy, buy. If the hours are stagnant, the melodies are mostly calm.

If music in a continuous stream is good, then radio is not at all. The songs should flow one after another, without being interrupted by any news or advertising, so as not to shift or completely destroy the focus of buyers on purchases.

What to read about neuromarketing?

In your spare time, we recommend reading the following popular books on this topic:

Summary

We learned that neuromarketing is a science at the intersection of neurobiology and marketing that studies our brain’s reactions to advertising. We studied the principles and goals of the methodology, learned about the advantages and disadvantages. We learned how neuromarketing works using examples.