New approaches may lead to advertising we won’t despise.
Scanning our brain for science or medicine is well known. Using EEG and MRI to determine how to advertise may be the tip of the iceberg as neurologists enter the business of branding.
At the vortexDNA blog, Kaila Colbin notices that these new approaches are “giving marketers scientific reasons why they have to respect their customers, adapt to the medium, and otherwise engage in behaviors that we all instinctively want anyway as consumers. In other words, there’s no suggestion that in order to get our attention marketing messages should be louder, more obnoxious, or more in-your-face.”
Understanding how the brain works is propelling marketers to refine advertising and brand building.
Millward Brown in “Engaging Consumer’s Brains” says the “effectiveness of marketing campaigns must be evaluated in relation to what we know about the workings of the brain“:
The brain is organized as a hierarchy of modules, in which discrete groups of neurons (the “modules”) are dedicated to processing different types of information. For example, one module might deal with visual stimuli, while another handles auditory input.
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The brain can only assemble one representation at a time, and only three or four can exist in the workspace simultaneously.
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If a brand lacks clear and distinct associations, neuroscience suggests that it will be unlikely to command a spot in the mental workspace when purchase decisions are made.
