Abstract
The principal objective of this paper is to demonstrate how neuromarketing has evolved to become one of the best forms of marketing in the modern world. Analysis will be laid on how this type of marketing has proved to be more effective than the traditional form of marketing. A brief overview provides a summary of the neuromarketing strategy which mainly focuses on the scientific processes that are used to study the behavior of the human brain in relation to promotional strategies used by various firms. This is compared to the traditional marketing methods and a clear analysis is brought out on how neuromarketing is more effective.
Effectiveness of Neuromarketing in Comparison to Traditional Marketing Methods.
Marketing is a field devoted to influencing people to like things, and ultimately to buy things, including things that they may not need. Marketers are aware that people have brains. Marketing, therefore, is now and always has been devoted to influencing brains. Neuromarketing is a new branch of marketing that is rapidly emerging in the world of consumer research (Genco and Pohlman, 2013). It entails the scientific study of how people's brains react to advertisements, promotions and other messages related to a particular brand of product. Wall (2013), in his article, states that the functional magnetic resonance imaging and additional tools made it achievable to picture the mechanisms of the human brain in extraordinary detail and accuracy.
Traditional marketing methods generally involve in-depth interviews, questionnaires and focus groups. It mostly involves responding to questions related to a particular product. This is usually done during advertisement and product development in order to evaluate possible new markets (Feinberg, Kinnear and Taylor, 2008). This marketing method is always highly reasonable since if there is a new product that a firm wants to launch in a particular market, it is advisable to ask the consumers in that particular market what they think of the product.
Since its grand entry into the marketing world, neuromarketing has been considered more effective as compared to traditional forms of marketing. According to Etchells (2013), the imposing argument of neuromarketing is that we can identify aspects like differences in how consumers make decisions during shopping and consumer preferences based on keenly studying brain activity. This information can be used by a firm to come up with brands that are appealing to the consumer’s brain. The argument further points out that this is the most effective way of identifying consumer preferences since it is better than merely relying on consumers to answer questionnaires, or take part in interviews. This is further supported by the fact that sometimes the respondents during interviews and when filling questionnaires may be irritating and annoying. Some can state that they like the product while in actual sense they do not like the product. So by studying the forms of brain activity, such kind of subjective prejudice are eliminated and it is possible to identify the actual thinking of the consumer (Feinberg, Kinnear and Taylor, 2008).
When developing neuromarketing strategies, it is important to incorporate all the six stimuli of human beings, that is, the senses of hearing, sight, touch, taste and smell. Further studies by Reinvose and Morin (2008) reiterates that recognizing the importance of these stimuli will give you a tremendous advantage in devising promotions that appeal to the emotion of the consumers. In the analysis of Gentner (2012), neuromarketing can assist in gaining the understanding of the unconscious decision making process as well as the neural mechanisms which they are based on. He further states that most people make decisions unconsciously. It can also aid in recognizing the various emotional systems in the human brain and to research their functions. According to Gentner (2012), there are no decisions which are non-emotional or rational. Neuromarketing can also help to explore how different channels of perception can be used most efficiently. The scientific processes involved can help analyze the attention and cognitive process of the brain. It is also obvious that these work in a different way than has formerly been suggested by the traditional AIDA (Attention Interest Desire Action) formula. For this reason the traditional AIDA formula is not only worth of criticism but is even incorrect.
The traditional marketing methods majorly rely on the 4Ps, that is, Product, Price, Promotion and Place. Most of the data that is collected is centered on these four aspects and most people would not disclose what they exactly feel. This approach also misses the most important part of marketing that is the ‘People’ – the consumers. According to Gummeson (2002, p. 329), the four Ps are majorly directed to mass marketing which has become less dominant. Therefore, appealing to individual customers cannot be easily achieved. It can also be noted that conducting the traditional market research is tedious and time consuming since it takes a lot of time to devise the right questions to ask the consumers and involves a lot of paper work that makes it tedious. This makes it an unreliable process (Hoffman, 2008).
Alternatively, neuromarketing relies majorly on emotions of consumers to determine their experience, influence future loyalty and customer lifetime value. The technology used seeks to find to an answer to particular products’ promotion and other marketing basics. The brain responses are considered more realistic and more as opposed to interviews or questionnaires (Doley, 2012). This process is scientific and therefore easier and consumes less time.
One major setback with neuromarketing is that human brains complex and there are ongoing researches to actually find out how they function. Accordingly, the techniques of brain imaging are also complex and several difficulties can be encountered during data interpretation. Moreover, some activists who are against neuromarketing are warning that it could eventually be used to influence consumers by taking advantage of their fears or unethically inducing positive replies.
Neuromarketing therefore should not be seen as a revolution that will re-establish existing approaches, but should rather be understood as a new perspective and verification process that places much of what has been previously correctly carried out on a sound scientific base (Sullivan, 2012). The above discussions prove that neuromarketing provides more benefits and therefore is more effective in developing marketing strategies.
Reference list
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