The Buying Brain: Secrets for Selling to the Subconscious Mind (5 page)

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The Buying Brain

Behind the second reason is a fascinating neurological finding: When asked to recount how it reacted to something, in the course of responding
the brain actually alters the original data it
recorded.

This is the basic problem with surveys and focus groups—so-called “articulated” or “self-reported” responses. These research methods can work reasonably well when used to capture
facts
recounted by participants. But not so much when it comes to probing how consumers truly felt about or remembered something. It is extraordinarily difficult for people to describe in precise words the emotions that they experienced when exposed to a stimulus.

We are asking our conscious mind to reconstruct what our subconscious mind recorded, and translate that into specific language that accurately reflects how we felt or what we remembered at an earlier point in time.

Traditional market research must try to work around this structural shortcoming, plus a couple of others. Focus groups can be influenced by one or more strong-voiced, opinionated participants. Surveys must cover large numbers of respondents in order to compensate for the inherent “noise” or error in any individual’s responses. These limitations are built-in for such “articulated response” methodologies.

So the third element in the birth of neuromarketing has been the fundamental
need in the market research world for more accurate, reliable, and
actionable knowledge
in order to make more informed business decisions.

This need is made all the more urgent by ever more competitive companies and economies.

Combine this need with the exponential growth in scientific knowledge of the brain, the advancement in computer technology, and the challenges of existing research approaches, and the advent of neuromarketing appears nothing less than inevitable.

Sample Size

One frequently asked question (FAQ) we encounter periodically has to do with sample size. Happily, here again neuroscience supplies the answer.

Traditional research methodologies require substantial sample sizes to approximate statistical validity. Fairly large numbers of people must be sampled in surveys to overcome variables such as language, education, culture, and other factors that can and do influence consumers’ articulated responses.

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In sharp contrast, neurological testing achieves more scientifically sound, rigorously reliable, and actionable results—and requires far smaller sample sizes to do so. Brainwave activity measurement dives below the surface of the consumer’s conscious mind, to the deep subconscious level where the brain’s initial registration of and reaction to stimuli occurs. While the human brain differs in some respects—for example, between men and women, or young children and seniors—
the fact is that our brains are far more alike than
they are different.

Because our brains are so remarkably alike, a thorough and scientifically sound neuromarketing research project
requires about 10 percent of the
test subjects
required by conventional surveys.

No matter how large the sample size may be, conventional research results are also vulnerable to a basic neurological fact: what our brains actually perceive and recall is different from what we say we perceived and recalled when we’re asked. The process of accessing that stored information and translating it into a physical response actually causes the brain to alter its original response.

NeuroFocus measures at the stage of the cognitive timeline before that alteration occurs.

Alphabet Soup, with a Side of Biometrics

As with any new field, the terminology, technology, and methodology associated with what is now commonly referred to as neuromarketing can be daunting and confusing to nonscientists. While some might maintain that there’s a marketing advantage to this aura of complexity, I disagree and firmly side with the late retail magnate Sy Syms, who said in his ads, “an educated consumer is our best customer.”

So herewith is
a brief overview
of the two main technological pillars upon which the neuromarketing category is built. And a third methodology that really has nothing to do with neurological measurement per se, but is often thrown into the mix (especially by its practitioners, who dearly love to embrace all that is great about the brain, without actually measuring it at all!).

EEG

As you now know, this acronym stands for electroencephalography. It is a

“passive” technology, using sensors (essentially, tiny and highly sensitive mi-crophones) to capture the minute electrical signals that brainwave activity produces. It is completely noninvasive and comfortable. Neuroscience laboratories worldwide have used EEG technology for decades.

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The Buying Brain

For full-brain coverage, which again is the sole scientific standard that any reputable EEG-based neurological testing company relies on, EEG sensors are embedded in a lightweight cap (closely resembling a typical swim cap) and deployed in high-density arrays. They measure the extremely low-voltage signals emitted by neurological activity at up to 2,000 times a second at each sensor’s location.

At NeuroFocus, we apply high density arrays of EEG sensors to achieve full-brain monitoring. We do so for several reasons.
Many areas of the brain are
responsible for several functions,
and because of this, we rely on full-brain coverage to know exactly which regions are operating simultaneously and in concert in response to a specific stimulus. If you only measure a very small number of areas, you are going to miss this essential element of interconnectivity—and your results will be woefully inadequate by any recognized neurological standards.

Sensor placement is key as well. EEG sensors are so sensitive that they pick up a certain amount of artifacts—“noise,” in signal processing parlance—along with brainwave activity. A classic example is eye blinks. Muscle movements like blinks can generate up to 100 times the electrical voltage that brainwave activity creates—so you can see that it is critical in the analysis phase to screen for and eliminate that noise, to ensure that what is being analyzed is only the pure brain activity data, uncorrupted by muscle activity or other extraneous signals. If you only place EEG sensors in certain limited areas—such as on the temples or forehead alone—you are going to pick up an inordinately large ratio of artifacts, or “noise,” from muscle activity in that area, compared with the brainwave activity recorded.

Relying exclusively on full-brain testing assures not only that brainwave activity across all the relevant and interconnected regions of the brain is being captured, but also that sufficient overlapping data streams are being acquired to allow for artifact removal, and still have more than enough brainwave data to conduct accurate analysis.

To put this into perspective, the importance of full-brain testing is reflected in the fact that NeuroFocus
discards
as artifact as much data as some other EEG-based neuromarketing companies collect in their
full set of data.

We combine this full-brain EEG testing methodology with sophisticated eye-tracking equipment that records exactly where a person is looking while experiencing a stimulus. This combination allows us to correlate, with precision, exactly how that person’s brain is responding to a certain stimulus in terms of our three primary NeuroMetrics of Attention, Emotional Engagement, and Memory Retention, with exactly where that person’s eyes are focused at the same millisecond.

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fMRI

This stands for functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging. If you’ve ever had a physical injury for which you’ve had an MRI scan, you’re familiar with the technology. It’s been in productive use in the medical community for years, and in the fMRI format, is a valid and useful form of neurological research.

A test subject is scanned by lying down in a long, narrow, tube, surrounded by extremely powerful magnets. Activation of these magnets produces electrical fields, which computer imaging converts to reveal inner body structures, or in fMRI applications, brain functionality.

In short, fMRI measures the increase in oxygen levels in the flow of blood within the brain. Hence, it can accurately indicate when activity in a certain area of the brain is increased. When neurological activity increases, the brain calls for added oxygen-bearing blood to fuel that activity—and fMRI scans pick that increase up.

The shortcoming of fMRI technology for marketing research purposes is that
it can take up to 5 seconds
for that added blood supply to reach that specific area of the brain. So, for example, if you’re testing a consumer’s neurological reaction to a TV commercial, their brain might respond instantaneously to a red car appearing in the spot—but the added blood that the brain called for in response to that heightened activity might take as long as 5 seconds before it reaches the activated area.

Therefore, relying on fMRI, it becomes problematic to attempt to link with temporal precision the exact stimulus—that red car appearing—with the indication of the brain’s response to it, because of the elapsed time between the two events.

In comparison, EEG testing captures the brain’s response in milliseconds.

Additional shortcomings for fMRI today include its cost—the equipment, specialized testing facilities, and trained staff
cost many millions
—and the demands on the person being tested: Only one subject can be tested at a time, and each subject must remain prone and completely motionless throughout the testing procedure, or the entire session will be invalid. If there is head movement of as little as three millimeters, it can render test results useless.

So fMRI, while scientifically sound and medically valuable as a diagnostic tool, currently has specific structural drawbacks that limit its effectiveness as a marketing research methodology.

Having said this, I do see significant potential of fMRI as the technology improves. Reflecting this belief, NeuroFocus recently obtained the core patent underlying the use of fMRI for neuroimaging purposes in marketing research.

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The Buying Brain

Biometrics

This is an overall term that represents measurements of physiological responses in the body—not directly in the brain—to external stimuli we experience with our senses. Examples of biometric measures include heart and respiration rates, eye movements, blinking, galvanic skin response (GSR), facial muscle movement, and body movements.

Some biometric measurements are limited for marketing research purposes in that they are “lagging indicators,” not direct measures, of primary brain activity. That is, the brain may issue an order to the body well before the physiological effect actually occurs. In an ideal world, we want to know when the order is issued, not just when it is carried out.

Similar to the temporal problem with fMRI measurements,
this lag time is
a definitive shortcoming.
Various human physical systems not only respond at different rates in comparison to each other; physiological responses in general can be dissimilar between different individuals; and even within one individual the complex of response rates may vary depending upon a whole host of factors (fatigue, medical conditions, environmental influences, and so forth).

Although much effort has been put into adjusting and calibrating all these timing differences, to date it has not been scientifically feasible to “time link”

all the body’s responses to stimuli with the brain’s original reactions in any consistent, reliable way. There are simply too many variations in the timing to do so.

To sum up: Biometrics do not delineate between specialized brain responses.

They provide a secondary, time-lagged, and confounded measure of arousal.

They cannot stand alone as reliable indicators of emotion or cognition.

This is not to say that biometric measurements cannot be useful. They can definitely serve as secondary, peripheral confirmations of what the brain has already registered and responded to. But make no mistake: they are
not
primary indicators of neurological activity—only direct electrical measures of brain activity can provide that data.
And EEG is exactly that:
The direct measure of electrical activity in the brain, registered at the true speed of thought.

To illustrate the dichotomy between basic physiological reactions and active

“thought,” consider that a comatose patient can still exhibit physical reactions to certain stimuli, like a loud hand clap. In other words, biometric response does not necessarily correspond with cognitive response, at either conscious or subconscious levels. The brain’s basic systems may still trigger a measurable response from the body’s physical systems—but that doesn’t alter the fact that the patient is still in a coma.

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The brain is where the initial, and most complex and meaningful, responses to stimuli are formed. More specifically, the subconscious level of the brain is where elements that are essential to marketing success such as initial product interest, purchase intent, and brand loyalty are formed, and where they reside.