Consumer neuroscience is the combination of consumer research with modern neuroscience. The goal of the field is to find neural explanations for consumer behaviors in individuals both with or without disease.
Consumer research Consumer research has existed for more than a century and has been well established as a combination of sociology, psychology, and anthropology, and popular topics in the field revolve around consumer decision-making, advertising, and branding. For decades, however, consumer researchers had never been able to directly record the internal mental processes that govern consumer behavior; they always were limited to designing experiments in which they alter the external conditions in order to view the ways in which changing variables may affect consumer behavior (examples include changing the packaging or changing a subject’s mood). With the integration of neuroscience with consumer research, it is possible to go directly into the brain to discover the neural explanations for consumer behavior. The ability to record brain activity with electrodes and advances in neural imaging technology make it possible to determine specific regions of the brain that are responsible for critical behaviors involved in consumption.Kenning PH, Plassmann H. How Neuroscience Can Inform Consumer Research. IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering. Dec 2008;16(6):532-538.
Consumer neuroscience is similar to neuroeconomics, neurobranding, and neuromarketing, but subtle, yet distinct differences exist between them. Neuroeconomics is more of an academic field while neuromarketing and consumer neuroscience are more of an applied science. Neuromarketing focuses on the study of various marketing techniques and attempts to integrate neuroscience knowledge to help improve the efficiency and effectiveness of said marketing strategies. Consumer neuroscience is unique among the three because the main focus is on the consumer and how various factors affect individual preferences and purchasing behavior.
Advertising
Advertising and emotion Studies of emotion are crucial to advertising research as it has been shown that emotion plays a significant role in ad memorization.Ambler T, Ioannides A, Rose S, Brands on the brain: Neuroimages of advertising. Business Strategy Rev. 2000;11(3):17–30.Delgado MR, Miller MM, Inati S, Rossiter E, Rossiter JR, Silberstein RB, Harris PG, Nield G. Brain-imaging detection of visual scene encoding in long-term memory for TV-commercials. J. Advertising Res. Mar 2001;41:13–22.Klucharev V, Smidts A, Fernandez G. Brain mechanisms of persuasion: how expert power modulates memory and attitudes. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. Dec 2008;3(4):353-366. Classically in advertising research, the theory has been that emotion and ratio are represented in different regions of the brain, but neuroscience may be able to disprove this theory by showing that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the striatum play a role in bilateral emotion processing.Ochsner KN, Gross JJ. The cognitive control of emotion. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. May 2005;9(5):242-249.
The attractiveness of the advertisements correlates with specific changes in brain activity in various brain regions including the medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate, nucleus accumbens and higher-order visual cortices.Kenning P, Plassmann H, Pieper A, Schwindt W, Kugel H Deppe M. Neural correlates of attractive ads. Working paper. 2006. This may represent an interaction between the perceived attractiveness of the ad by the consumer and the emotions expressed by the people pictured in the advertisement.Plassmann H, Ambler T, Braeutigam S, Kenning P. What can advertisers learn from neuroscience? International Journal of Advertising. 2007;26(2):151-175. It has been suggested that ads that use people with positive emotions are perceived as attractive while ads using exclusively text or depicting people with neutral expressions may generally be viewed as unattractive. Unattractive ads activate the anterior insula, which plays a role in the processing of negative emotions.Greene J, Sommerville R, Nystrom L, Darley J, Cohen J. An fMRI investigation of emotional engagement in moral judgment. Science, 2001;293(5537): 2105–2108. Both attractive and unattractive ads have been shown to be more memorable than ads described as ambiguously attractive, but more research is needed to determine how this translates to the overall brand perception in the eyes of the consumer and how this may impact future purchasing behavior.
Mental processing of advertisements There are various studies that have been conducted to research the question of how consumers process and store the information presented in advertisements. Television commercials with scene durations lasting longer than 1.5 seconds have been shown to be more memorable one week later than scenes that last less than 1.5 seconds, and scenes that produce the quickest electrical response in the left frontal hemisphere have been shown to be more memorable as well. It has been suggested that the transfer of visual advertising inputs from short term memory to long term memory may take place in the left hemisphere, and highly memorable ads can be created by producing the fastest responses in the left hemisphere.Rossiter JR, Silberstein RB. Brain-imaging detection of visual scene encoding in long-term memory for TV commercials. Journal of Advertising Research. Mar-Apr 2001;41(2):13-21. However, these theories have been renounced by some who believe that the research findings may be attributed to extraneous and unmeasured factors.Crites Jr S, Aikman-Eckenrode S. Making inferences concerning physiological responses: a reply to Rossiter, Silberstein, Harris and Nield. Journal of Advertising Research. 2001;41(2);23–26. There is also evidence to suggest that a front to back difference in processing speed may be more influential on ad memorization than left to right differences.Kemp A, Gray M, Eide P, Silberstein R, Nathan P. Steady-state visually evoked potential topography during processing of emotional valence in healthy subjects. Neuroimage. Dec 2002;17(4):1684–1692.
Research has shown that there are certain periods of commercials that are far more significant for the consumer in terms of establishing advertising effects. These short segments are referred to as “branding moments” and are thought to be the most engaging parts of the commercial. These moments can be identified using an EEG and analyzing alpha waves (8–13 Hz), beta waves (13–30 Hz) and theta waves (4–7 Hz).Young C. Brain waves, picture sorts, and branding moments. Journal of Advertising Research. July 2002; 42(4):42–53. These results may suggest that the strength of a commercial with regard to its effect on the consumer can be evaluated by the strength of its unique branding moments, helping brands create more engaging and effective AR campaigns.
In addition, research has also found that a consequence of curiosity, in terms of advertising, is that an unsatisfied curiosity can lead to indulgent consumption in any domain. Wiggin, K., Reimann, M., Jain, S. Curiosity Tempts Indulgence. Journal of Consumer Research. 2019; 45:1194–1212.
Affective vs. cognitive ads Affective advertising (using comedy, drama, suspense, etc.) activates the amygdala, the orbitofrontal cortices, and the brainstem whereas cognitive advertising (strict facts) mainly activates the posterior parietal cortex and the superior prefrontal cortices.Ioannides A, Liu L, Theofilou D, Dammers J, Burne T, Ambler T, Rose S. Real time processing of affective and cognitive stimuli in the human brain extracted from MEG signals. Brain Topography. 2000; 13(1):11–19. Ambler and Burne in 1999 created the Memory-Affect-Cognition (MAC) theory to explain the processes involved in decision making. According to the theory, the majority of decisions are habitual and do not require affect or cognition; they require memory only.Ambler T, Burne T. The impact of affect on the memory of advertising. Journal of Advertising Research. 1999;39(2):25–34. Most of the remaining decisions only require memory and affect; they do not require cognition.Shapiro Y. Descartes' error: Emotion, reason, and the human brain - Damasio, AT. Theory & Psychology. Dec 1997;7(6):837-856. The main use for cognition is in the form of rationalization following a particular action, however, there are occasional instances in which memory, affect and cognition are all used in conjunction, such as during a debate about a particular choice. The above findings suggest a correlation exists between ad memorization and the degree of affective content within the advertisement, but it is still unclear how this translates to brand memory.
Branding
Brand associations Much of consumer research is devoted to studying the effect of brand associations on consumer preferences and how they manifest into brand memories. Brand memories can be defined as “everything that exists in the minds of customers with respect to a brand (e.g. thoughts, feelings, experiences, images, perceptions, beliefs and attitudes)”.Keller K, Lehmann D. How do brands create value? Marketing Management Aug 2003: 15–19. Several studies have indicated there is not a designated area of the brain devoted to brand recognition. Studies have shown that different areas of the brain are activated when exposed to a brand as opposed to a person, and decisions regarding the evaluation of brands in different product categories activate the area of the brain responsible for semantic object processing rather than areas involved with the judgment of people.Yoon C, Gutchess AH, Feinberg F, Polk TA. A functional magnetic resonance imaging study of neural dissociations between brand and person judgments. Journal of Consumer Research. Jun 2006;33(1):31-40. These two findings suggest that brands are not processed by the brain in the same manner as human personalities, indicating that personality theory cannot be used to explain brand preferences.
Consumer neuroscience explains brand loyalty In a study of fMRI scans of loyal and less loyal customers it was found that in the case of loyal customers the presence of a particular brand serves as a reward during choice tasks, but less loyal customers do not exhibit the same reward pathway. It was also found that loyal customers had greater activation in the brain areas concerned with emotion and memory retrieval suggesting that loyal customers develop an affective bond with a particular brand, which serves as the primary motivation for repeat purchases.