Spurred partially due to the popularity of Martin Lindstrom’s [amazon-product text="Buyology" type="text"]0385523882[/amazon-product], the marketing world has embraced its newest buzz word: neuromarketing. Neuromarketing involves using knowledge of functional regions of the brain (e.g., pleasure centers, fears centers) combined with brain imaging techniques to detect consumers’ true preferences for products, services, advertising, or anything the experimenters wish to study.
I find neuromarketing interesting and useful, but it’s not the problem solver many see it as. Although it can provide information as to whether or not a product is likely to fail, or which of two advertising campaigns is the better choice, neuromarketing currently fails to be able to inspire innovation. It might have informed Coca-Cola that New Coke was a bad idea and shouldn’t be invested in, but it wouldn’t have saved Coca-Cola all the time and money it spent coming up with the idea in the first place; it might have been able to inform Apple that the Newton wasn’t its best idea, but it couldn’t have created the idea or the design of the iPod.
I believe that coming up with a Brand Model that captures everything the best customers—the ones most in tune to what the company is about—love about the brand from a psychological and biological perspective is where marketers should be focused. Effective Brand Models give companies the focus they need to create products and messaging that connect with the customers.
Neuromarketing helps downstream as a final test, but real power comes from knowing where to start upstream. And, it saves time and money, too.
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Interesting post. Hard to say where the marketing world wants to go. The idea of a single focus on lets say innovation or improving the product seems to difficult. Why not run some spots and sell more product to more people.
Also these test are done in isolation where in real life brands compete within a given context.