Brands are constantly searching for new ways to understand consumers and influence purchasing decisions.
Neuromarketing has emerged as an exciting development in the marketing field in recent years. While narrowly defined as a field of marketing research, it broadly represents a marketing approach focused on the consumer brain. Neuromarketing offers several advantages over traditional marketing research when testing marketing materials or gaining insights.
Neuromarketing is a field in which marketers use brain imaging, other neuroscience techniques, and biometric measurement methods to understand subconscious mental processes and the factors that influence purchasing decisions. Supported by hundreds of valid and influential studies and utilized by many global brands, neuromarketing clearly has the potential to revolutionize marketing strategies. However, some marketers still approach this field with reservations and hesitations.
Questions like , "Is it worth the budget?"? "How can we use neuromarketing tools?"? "Can they truly answer our marketing questions?"? "Is a small sample size sufficient?"? "How accurate are the findings?" Do we even have to use neuromarketing? These hesitations underlie these concerns. Lack of knowledge and hesitation about neuromarketing constitute a significant barrier to interest and investment in this field. This can prevent marketers from fully realizing its potential and falling behind the competition.
Let's take a look at the advantages of neuromarketing, unlike traditional marketing:
Understanding Subconscious Processes
Advertising genius David Ogilvy's words, "People can't think what they feel, they can't express what they think, and they don't do what they say," succinctly summarize the necessity of neuromarketing. Research shows that 95% of people's daily decisions are driven by subconscious processes, while conscious decision-making accounts for only 5%. This undermines traditional research methods like surveys and interviews. Because these methods appeal to the conscious mind, they overlook important factors like emotions and impulses that directly influence purchasing decisions.
The subconscious mind, however, is driven by emotions and impulses rather than logic. Therefore, consumers may not fully understand what they want or why they buy in surveys, and they may not always tell the truth. For example, when Bose asked young people about their color preferences for a newly launched Bluetooth speaker, they unanimously favored yellow, while all chose black for the speakers they received as gifts. This suggests that consumers' conscious responses do not always reflect their true attitudes and behaviors.
Unlike traditional methods, neuromarketing uses scientific techniques to measure and analyze subconscious processes. This allows marketers to more accurately understand consumers' true desires, needs, and purchasing behaviors and develop more effective marketing strategies accordingly.
Using the Power of Emotions
Emotions are powerful driving forces that significantly influence our purchasing decisions and behavior. As renowned neuroscientist Antonio Damasio said, "We are not thinking machines with emotions, but feeling machines that can think." Neuromarketing research methods allow us to measure these powerful emotions and analyze them during consumption, as soon as we are exposed to marketing materials.
While Coca-Cola attracts millions by promising happiness, the impact of the "click" sound and the attractive faces in Magnum's ads on sales is widely acknowledged. Neuromarketing studies also prove the effectiveness of happiness promises. The reason happiness promises are so effective is that they activate the brain's reward system, triggering the release of dopamine. Dopamine, in turn, is associated with feelings of pleasure and satisfaction, which in turn triggers purchasing decisions. Therefore, many brands like Getir, Eti, Ülker, and McDonald's place happiness promises at the center of their marketing strategies. Today, the concept of "happiness marketing" is being discussed. In marketing, prioritizing emotions and understanding which emotions you trigger and whether you're actually evoking an emotional impact is crucial for developing successful marketing strategies. Marketing strategies that appeal to emotions foster long-term success by building stronger and more lasting bonds between brands and consumers.
Optimizing Campaigns
Neuromarketing is a powerful tool that helps marketers optimize the impact of their campaigns and use their resources more efficiently. As marketing luminary John Wanamaker once said, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted. The problem is, I don't know which half is wasted.” Neuromarketing addresses precisely this wasted half. Understanding why an ad is watched is as important as understanding why it isn't. McKinsey recently published a report showing that 20% of marketing budgets are wasted, equating to approximately $200 billion globally.
Using neuromarketing techniques, we can identify unnecessary scenes in advertising, understand where consumers focus on packaging, determine which scenes in a movie are most exciting, analyze which designs attract the most attention, or identify areas where users struggle to use a website. Optimizing marketing or campaign strategies using these insights significantly increases conversion rates.
Customizable Campaigns
Neuromarketing allows you to see what's happening with your target audience, allowing you to design more personalized campaigns. For example, Procter & Gamble (P&G) used watch time as a measure of success in its video ads. However, research using neuromarketing techniques has shown that watch time isn't always equivalent to attention span. Based on this finding, P&G achieved more effective results by incorporating attention span into its campaigns. Neuromarketing helps marketers optimize the return on their marketing investment (ROI) by significantly increasing the impact of their campaigns. This allows brands to achieve greater success with fewer resources.
Things to Consider in Neuromarketing Studies
It's crucial to be well-informed about neuromarketing and work with the right partners. Neuromarketing agencies can provide insights you can't obtain through other methods. It's also important to consider the dizzying pace of research being conducted in this field and the new discoveries it generates, taking this into account in marketing. When conducting neuromarketing research, it's crucial to be clear about the question you want answered and to work with neuromarketing companies that are competent in this area. While doing this, it's crucial to understand the limitations of neuromarketing and remember that it's best to use it in conjunction with traditional research methods to gain effective insights.
Ultimately, it's time for brands to embrace a powerful tool like neuromarketing. This tool will help you optimize your marketing strategies, increase sales, and build stronger connections between your brand and consumers.