With the emergence of neuroeconomics and neuromarketing, there is no place to hide your preferences inside your brain. The main objective of these emerging fields is to understand your reactions toward different stimuli, to discover what triggers your consumption impulses and to decipher what you really want.
Although it sounds like a science fiction movie, Dr. David Lewis from the research consultancy Mindlab International has dedicated thirty years of his life to study psychological and physiological reaction in humans. No wonder why he is considered the ‘father of neuromarketing’.
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| Source: IntraMed.net |
Our preferences are determined by a great mixture of factors, including personality, cultural background, religion, gender, education and even age. Neuromarketing tests are a tool to pass over your mental recipe and analyze your reactions. The results are stunning, even in those cases where we can’t conscientiously perceive the different between two similar stimuli.
However, who is controlling these studies? And who is in charge of defining the limits of neuromarketing? Everything sounds pretty amazing but without clear boundaries we could fall into the deep hole of ethics: is it right to peek inside people’s mind to sell them the right pair of shoes? For some, the issue will get really disturbing and can jeopardize our legal right to privacy.
For now, I prefer to spend hours in a store until I make up my mind whether I should buy the blue product than being mentally scanned for the right choice. I already accepted that most of the time I’ll be back to return the articles I didn’t like.
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ReplyDeletePaola, your blog this week is amazing. I agree people should have the right to make their own decisions when it comes to buying items in the stores. Neuromarketing can become overwhelming in the future if the government decides to scan people’s minds to find out their preferences. I don’t think it will get to that point. Also, I believe that neuromarketing research is ethical with the participants consent. The whole aspect of neuromarketing is actually interesting because it can pinpoint what people like. But like you said, ultimately, I prefer to spend hours in the stores making my own decisions on products and services. I recently wrote a blog on neuromarketing as well! Jefo Marketing Reporter Blog
ReplyDeleteI think that marketing has always tried to influence our decisions. To do this, it has used very different ways to affect the way we think, such as ads and promotions. However, as technology develops, the ways to influence our behavior change and new fields that can be really beneficial or very harmful are created. I think that neuromarketing is in this situation: a very useful and beneficial tool or a very harmful technique. As you say, the issue is related to the boundaries to be set for this new field. However, if we leave this decision to corporations, which will be benefiting out of it, clear limits will never be defined. Also, regulatory laws has always been left behind the fast pace of technology. I think that as many issues will arise, consumers, corporations and governments will have to reach a middle point.
ReplyDeleteHi there Paola. I wanted to share some thoughts with you on the same topic. Wouldn't you agree that from all this research something good might actually come up? That if these researchers actually crack this code they would find a better way to serve you? It's not our dirty little secrets they will discover and reveal but perhaps a little data on how to make and present more appealing products. Appealing to us the consumers!!! If you have a chance, take a look at what I say about this at http://mar-biz-lous.blogspot.com I agree that there are issues with this. But I don't think it can constitute an intrusion into our privacy.
ReplyDeleteAs you said, you want a choice to dictate what you want to buy and how you choose to buy that item, and/or return. This makes our consuming behavior unpredictable. As you mentioned, our different experiences,culture wise, economically, and stage in life provides us with differences in our thought patterns as differening consumers. The thought process behind this kind of technology, while thought provoking does raise a lot of questions as to its validity. How are certain decisions made, as to who's mind do we look into today, and does that particular mind represent the target market in general? I prefer to spend hours in the store too, its just getting too complicated!
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Hi Paola, I think Neuromarketing is a very powerful tool that can have a positive impact in the society but also can arise many ethical problems if the information is not use properly. The facts are: what is the limit? Where the marketers should stop researching? I’m a believer in research however I think that science needs a limit. People need to have a natural incentive to buy anything or to choose the best candidate for their town and nobody should have the power to control that.
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