Neuromarketing and fMRI Scanning

2005 and 2006 saw considerable attention and a fair amount of hype paid to the subject of neuromarketing and the question of whether fMRI scanners could have a major role in market research. Several of the early papers on the subject looked at assessing the impact of TV commercials, by showing subjects the commercials whilst they were in scanners. The techniques of brain scanning appear to be useful in helping determine how stimuli are processed and exploring which research techniques work and how they work. However, there is little validation that the work to date produces results that correspond to changes in consumption.

In the short to medium term it is difficult to see brain scanning techniques having a major direct impact on market research, because scanning tends to be expensive and slow, which means it is not suitable for many research situations. Also, since most scanning is done with very small samples, it is hard to see how studies that look into the differences between people, for example segmentation or even U&As, would benefit from fMRIs.

The most likely short to medium term use for brain scanning is to increase the extent to which we understand how the brain works, and therefore to design research techniques which benefit from this knowledge.

A really good paper on this topic won best paper at the recent ESOMAR Congress in London.  The paper “Cognitive Neuroscience, Marketing and Research: Separating Fact from Fiction” by Graham Page and Professor Jane Raymond reviews what neuroscience can tell us about the working of the brain and then discusses how the learning from this can be applied to conventional research (in this case Millward Brown’s conventional research). The paper is available from Nigel Hollis’ blog and can be downloaded here.

Comments

[Phil Harris]

Ray, the Millward Brown paper mentioned in your October 30 blog provides some useful groundwork for understanding the impact of neuroscience-based measures in communications research. However, as this paper focuses on fMRI-based research and other neuroscience-grounded research techniques that are not particularly well-suited for communication research, the perspective presented in this paper neglects an important application of neuroscience-based research that forces a rethink on most, if not all, the objections raised to the use of imaging technology in communications research.

An innovative form of EEG-based technology, termed steady-state topography (SST) that is offered by Neuro-Insight has been used since the late 90's to provide communications insights in commercially viable timelines and at costs that are competitive with mainstream research techniques. Using SST technology, brain electrical activity responses of 50 or more research participants may be collected in a single day, and segmented responses of 100 or more respondents capable of being turned around in weeks, rather than months. SST measures have now been collected in response to close to a thousand commercials.

Use of SST research is certainly assisting our understanding of how the brain works at a fundamental level, but importantly for the purposes of this discussion, Neuro-Insight and Colmar Brunton have been working with this technology to provide Australian organisations with an understanding of consumer's engagement, attention, emotional valence (like/dislike), and long-term memory encoding responses to their communications on a second-by-second basis. The research is conducted while participants experience research materials embedded within normalistic viewing scenarios, so responses are a better reflection of actual viewing responses than methods that direct attention to the research stimulus.

Research insights using SST have been demonstrated to directly impact on the bottom line of Colmar Brunton's clients, and notably, result in substantial improvements in advertising tracking scores. So we're confident that the SST measures are providing insights into aspects of consumer responses to communications that do impact on purchase behaviour. Furthermore, using combinations of SST, quantitative and qualitative research techniques, we’ve seen how neuroscience-based measures provide information that is simply not revealed through use of traditional measures, a firm basis to commend a place for neuroscience-based measures in the well-rounded researchers’ toolkit! Further detail on the use of SST technology is available on the Colmar Brunton Neuroscience pages (www.cbr.com.au/neuroscience) or at www.neuro-insight.com.au.