 |
 |
|
"Koeppel Direct's media buying expertise has played an integral role in making my company successful. Koeppel generated so much business for our company, occasionally we have to limit their media buys, in order to handle all of the new business." | |
| - R. Gregg Marketer of Senior Products |
|
MEDIA BUYING DIRECT RESPONSE TELEVISION (DRTV) ARTICLE ...... |
Marketers have always wanted to get inside consumers minds. New technology allows them to do just that.
Published: 10/06 - Deliver Magazine |
| |
It's the marketing Holy Grail: being able to read your target customers minds. Although
that exact ability may yet elude our grasp, current research is bringing us remarkably close to that precognitive
reality.
"In the past, we've used things like focus groups," says Akshay Rao, General Mills professor of marketing at
Minnesota's Carlson School of Management. "Now, I can actually look inside your brain as you look at an advertising
piece that has yellow, green, and blue versus a black and white piece, and tell whether the yellow, green and blue
piece is generating more neural activity."
To accomplish this, Rao uses a functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) scanner to peer into consumers brains.
Basically a giant doughnut-shaped magnet, an fMRI scanner enables researchers to see how much oxygen different parts
of the brain are using while the test subject lies on a narrow table with his or her head in the "hole" of the donut.
The most active areas display the most oxygen flow and "light up" on the scanner.
Advocates of neuromarketing research say that its results are more objective and accurate than results gained using
customary research methods such as surveys and focus groups. "With traditional marketing research techniques,
people do not always express their true feelings, so information is often not reflective of what the consumer is
actually thinking," says Peter Koeppel, president of Koeppel Direct, a firm that provides multi-channel direct-response
services.
"Neuromarketing allows marketers to understand the impact of their ad on the consumer's brain," he says. "By reviewing and
analyzing this information, the marketer can change the marketing campaign to improve consumer response, which translates
into a better return on investment."
That improved understanding of how campaigns affect consumers is the first step toward creating more intimate
relationships, says Rao, who is also the director of the Carlson School's Institute for Research in Marketing. "When I do
consulting work for companies, I tell them to develop consumer intimacy," he says. "With neuromarketing, we have a
physiological means of assessing whether those intimate relationships have been established."
And that higher level of intimacy means a greater emotional connection with the consumer - all of which translates
into greater engagement in an increasingly fragmented media world.
Neuromarketing can help marketers determine the right message and the right design before a campaign even goes out.
"What kind of information can you provide that will make an emotional connection with consumers and lead them to read
the rest of your information?" asks Rao. "Should it be words? Pictures? In color or black and white? In the top left
corner or the bottom right? What about font size?"
One company that uses neuromarketing to sharpen its marketing message is Vistage International, which provides
networking and educational opportunities to CEOs. And one of the areas in which neuromarketing has made the biggest
difference for Vistage is direct mail.
Laura DiPietro, Vistage chief marketing officer, says that although direct mail has always been a key element of her
company's strategy, the organization's direct-mail pieces were "blah" before Vistage began working with SalesBrain,
a marketing company that specializes in neuromarketing.
Vistage's old direct pieces were very conservative, with visuals of white men in their fifties, says DiPietro. She
and her associates learned from SalesBrain that the look didn't elicit an emotional response in prospects, and
therefore wasn't memorable, nor did it motivate consumers to take action.
Vistage began the makeover in May, and the company's direct mail pieces and Web site now feature elements that
resonate far greater with their target customers. "We've really tried to modernize our direct-marketing tools by
including something based on neuromarketing. Our new pieces incorporate a more active sense," says DiPietro.
"The photos we use now do not just focus on people but are more high-concept pictures. The colors are new and fresh
and the direct pieces always have a question and then a payoff line."
But fMRI scanners don't come cheap: Rao says renting time on a scanner and testing 20 subjects costs around
$15,000. Perhaps even more daunting, neuromarketing carries with it a certain degree of stigma, both on the part of
consumers and marketers. Some of the biggest brand names in the world have been linked to neuromarketing in the
popular press, yet none of these companies would comment for this article.
This comes as no surprise to Rao. "[Companies] might be hesitant to talk about [neuromarketing]," he says.
Many marketers are hesitant to go public about their companies use of neuromarketing, lest they be perceived as
engaging in overly invasive techniques. "Consumers will be afraid that their deepest darkest innermost thoughts
are open for public examination," says Rao. "But this is not the case." Rao explains that if a company really wanted
to gain access to consumers thoughts while they actually shop, the company would need to put consumers into a
scanner while they were in grocery stores or shopping malls. "This is clearly infeasible," says Rao.
What's more, even though neuromarketing allows marketers to get inside the heads of their consumers, it's not
always easy to understand what's going on in there. Figuring out exactly what people are thinking based on
scanning results remains a challenge, says Carolyn Yoon, associate professor of marketing at the University of
Michigan Stephen M. Ross School of Business.
Yoon says that although scanners do enable researchers to see whether certain well-defined regions of the brain
activate when a test subject encounters something like an ad, a product, or a spokesperson, it's still difficult to
interpret exactly what that activity means. "If your visual cortex lights up, it can mean that you're picturing
something, but what?" says Yoon. "If your activation pattern shows a strong emotional reaction, is it love, hate,
envy, ardent appreciation, anger, or one of many other strong feelings?" In her own research, Yoon typically
collects behavioral responses (e.g. emotion ratings) at the same time as the brain scan images, and this can
be useful for drawing inferences about neural activation patterns.
Although some observers are concerned that neuromarketing research smacks of Big Brother, others see great
potential. "I am optimistic about what science can do to an area of marketing," says Christophe Morin, co-author
of the book Neuromarketing: Is There A Buy Button Inside The Brain? and co-founder of SalesBrain, the marketing
company that worked with Vistage on its revamped campaign. Morin doesn't see this field as a chance to invasively
manipulate, but rather an opportunity for businesses to communicate more clearly with their customers. "I truly
believe that neuromarketing will improve the work that we see done in advertising and communications," says Morin.
According to Morin, focusing efforts on communicating with the decision-making center in the brain will yield more
effective marketing. "The primitive area of the brain, also known as the "old brain," is critical for all marketers
[to be aware of]," he says, "because it would guide their creative efforts to trigger maximum attention, generate
higher retention and ultimately increase the response."
And there are plenty of campaigns out there that could use some help. "Many ads, especially print ads,
violate neurological principles," says Caroline Winnett, vice president of marketing for NeuroFocus, Inc.,
which provides in-depth research on commercial advertising and political messaging. But there are some very
simple things you can do to make your ad more effective, she says. For example, images on a direct mail piece
should be on the left, with the text on the right, because the left brain processes information and the right
brain processes images.
Instead of using fMRI imaging, NeuroFocus uses electroencephalograms (EEGs), eye-tracking, and galvanic skin
response (GSR) tests to conduct its research. Scanning the brain with an EEG differs from using an fMRI in
that the EEG measures electrical signals produced by the brain, through sensors in a cap worn by the
subject, and the results are displayed as bumpy lines on graph paper.
Winnett says these methods are more practical, affordable, and portable than using an fMRI scanner. Winnett
says a typical NeuroFocus study costs about the same as a focus group, but yields what she considers more
reliable results. "Since we measure brain waves directly, we are language-neutral and free of the cognitive
biases inherent in surveys and focus groups," says Winnett.
Neuromarketing is helping to turn the art of marketing into more of a science, says Winnett. "We can analyze subjects
reactions to any kind of advertising," she says, "so marketers can run their ads through our scanners and we can
give them very detailed information."
NeuroFocus clients include household brand names as well as very large advertising agencies, however those clients
are also reluctant to discuss neuromarketing with the press. "I think there's a perception that consumers are a
little wary of it," says Winnett, "but once people see what we do, it usually allays their fears. It's like when
someone has an EKG done to assess cardiac health. The EKG just measures what's happening in the heart. It doesn't
have any effect on the heart itself."
Neuromarketing is an exciting, albeit controversial, topic of research. But Rao says it is certainly no marketing
panacea. "We stand the risk of over-promising with this technology," says Rao. "The techniques of cognitive
neuroscience are only useful in understanding the processes that might be at play when a person is exposed to
one or another stimulus. Period. It does not allow marketers to watch people's emotions while they make
decisions in the marketplace. Neuromarketing is merely another tool that will tell us a little bit more."
|
| |
|
|
|
