Neuromarketing

Both the traditional press and bloggers have jumped on Martin Lindstom’s Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy. The opinons range from fascinated to horrified, and dismissive to enthusiastic. We learned that the scheduled 60 Minutes segment on Buyology was cancelled in favor of covering the global economic meltdown, but the mere fact that the CBS news show filmed a segment on a marketing book indicates the interest in neuromarketing. (I previously reported on the NBC Today Show coverage.) Here’s a sampling of opinions on Buyology: (more…)

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I’m guessing marketers of products for itch relief, athlete’s foot, and the like already know this… but itching can be stimulated by seeing other people scratch, and even by images of itch-causing creatures like bedbugs. Last month’s Scientific American Mind had a interesting article on the neuroscience of chronic itching. Much of it was no doubt interesting to the 10% of the population who suffers from chronic itching, but the neuromarketing takeaway from the piece was how easy it was to induce subjects to feel itchy themselves without a real cause.

Thinking about itching, seeing people scratch, looking at pictures of bedbugs or other itch inducers—all can bring on an irresistible urge to flick away that irksome feeling…

Most people need only watch others scratching to start themselves. Just seeing a picture that is connected with scratching—a photograph of fleas, for example—can do the trick as well. But until recently, there was not even any clear scientific evidence of this widely shared experience.

To close this gap, our team, under the direction of medical psychologist Jörg Kupfer, conducted a psychological experiment with students. Our unsuspecting participants were asked to evaluate the educational quality of a lecture on the topic, “Itching—What Is It?” The test subjects—60 medical and psychology students—attended one of two different lectures. One group viewed images of lice, fleas, bedbugs and allergic skin reactions; the other group saw babies and calming landscapes. Unsurprisingly, the students in the first group scratched themselves significantly more frequently during the presentation than their counterparts in the second one did. [From ScientificAmerican.com - Chronic Itching: Causes and Cures by Uwe Gieler and Bertram Walter.]

The researchers suggest that mirror neurons may be involved in the itch initiation process. These neurons mimic the activity of others in our brains, and have been associated with the “contagion” of yawning.

So, unless you really want to get your customers itchy, keep any images of people scratching and creepy-crawlies likely to suggest itching out of your marketing…

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Ever wonder what goes on inside a journalist’s head when he thinks about politics, television shows, or his boss? An article in The Atlantic, My Amygdala, My Self, tells us that and more. The intro to the piece notes that correspondent Jeffrey Goldberg was “intrigued and alarmed” by the new concept of neuromarketing, and decided to enter an fMRI machine and have his brain scanned while he viewed videos and photos on a variety of topics. The scanning was done by FKF Applied Research, known for past rankings of Super Bowl ads.

Early in the article, there’s a nice point/counterpoint on the reliability of the interpretation of fMRI data:

Still, I wondered to what degree this was truly scientific and to what degree it was 21st-century phrenology. The columnist David Brooks, who is writing a book about the brain, encouraged my skepticism when I talked to him about this. “My fear is that this is like flying over Los Angeles at night, looking at the lights in the houses and trying to guess what people are talking about at dinner,” he said.

I mentioned Brooks’s doubts to the neuroscientist [Marco] Iacoboni, who dismissed them, but with a caveat. “This is not one-to-one mapping,” he said. “You have to interpret the data within the context of the brain activation. It’s not mathematical, but it can give you an amazing understanding of what lights up different parts of the brain.” Iacoboni, a world leader in the study of mirror neurons—cells in the brain that help us process the emotions and actions of other people (his new book, Mirroring People, has much to say about the connection between autism and “broken” mirror neurons)—told me that in order for his team to sift my brain comprehensively, I would have to spend a full week undergoing fMRI screening. But even an hour inside the machine would yield a baseline understanding of my neurological predispositions.

The tone of the article is breezy, and we learn that Goldberg’s brain seems to be a bit afraid of Jimmy Carter (whose book he just panned) but finds actress Edie Falco hot. (Some guilt showed up with Falco’s picture, too, no doubt because Goldberg was aware that people were peering inside his brain while he was appreciating the actress.) Some findings were unexpected, like a seeming positive reaction to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - an individual for whom Goldberg has little sympathy. The scientists tried to force-fit an explanation involving Goldberg’s anticipation that Ahmadinejad would eventually fall from power to explain his brain’s reaction, but that example showed the limitations of current brain scan interpretation.

All in all, the article doesn’t do much to boost neuromarketing credibility, but it’s highly readable and will definitely help readers unfamiliar with the area gain a better understanding of how neuromarketing practitioners ply their trade.

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Why to people react with fear when they see a snake, even though they have never been bitten by a snake or even had much contact with the reptiles? New research shows that the same areas of the brain that react to a personal experience involving pain or fear also react to watching someone else exhibit fear in response to the stimulus.

Study participants watched a short video of a person conditioned to fear a so-called neutral stimulus — something people normally wouldn’t fear — paired with something they find naturally aversive, in this case an electrical shock. The person in the video watched colored squares on a computer screen: When a blue square appeared, the person received a mild shock; when a yellow square appeared, there was no shock. The participant in the video responded with distress when the blue square appeared — he would blink hard, tense his cheek muscles and move his hand…

Participants were told they would take part in a similar experiment, and when presented with the blue square, they responded with fear, anticipating a shock, though they were never actually shocked. [From Fear can be learned through others’ experiences]

The study was done by Andreas Olsson and others at Columbia University, and published in the March issue of the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. We’ve posted about related observations in the past, in particular The Dread Zone: Anticipating Pain and various posts about mirror neurons. In each case, researchers show that subjects experience a brain reaction similar to a real experience when they watch someone else have that experience.

Looked at as a whole, this body of work suggests that advertisers have a powerful tool: showing real people undergoing an experience of some kind may affect viewers as if they were having the experience themselves. Fear and pain seem to be particularly potent, although that may be simply because those topics have been studied more; I wouldn’t want to see an avalanche of ads featuring fearful, suffering people.

One has to assume that viewers, consciously or unconsciously, assign a credibility factor to what they are viewing. In a research lab, viewing a similar subject get shocked when shown a blue square and being told one will participate in the same experiment would no doubt have very high credibility. Conversely, watching a horror movie where household cats become deadly killers may make us cringe when we see a child playing with a cat in the movie, but is unlikely to make us fear cats once we leave the theater. Commercials probably fall in some middle area of credibility - more believable than an obviously fictional horror movie, but less credible than, say, a non-commercial documentary or an in-person experience.

What’s the neuromarketing lesson here? It’s a bit of a stretch to go from fear research to making more effective ads, but I think there are several key strategies one can extrapolate:

1) Keep it real: Use real people, in real situations, with realistic reactions, to produce a stronger learning response than patently false situations, cartoon characters, etc.

2) Maximize credibility: This isn’t demonstrated by the research, but I think it’s clear that viewers discriminate between believable sources (e.g., the Columbia experiment videos) and less believable ones (e.g., horror movies). Hence, the learning response is likely to be enhanced if the advertiser can prepare the viewer with credibility enhancers like study results, a credible endorser or spokesperson, etc.

3) Be careful with fear and pain. Just because you can make viewers vicariously experience pain or fear doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. As I noted in the earlier Dread Zone post, the Lamisil toenail-lifting gremlin definitely makes me cringe, but does that build a good brand association or increase the likelihood of purchasing the product? Perhaps a convincing scenario with a real person showing clear relief after using the product might produce a more effective and profitable learning response.

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We’re always interested when neuroscience research shows how people respond to external cues, and some new research into the effects of sounds may well have neuromarketing implications. Researchers played a series of sounds for subjects and monitored their brain activity with an fMRI scanner. The sounds were either positive in nature (laughter, triumph) or negative (screaming, retching). The study, performed by Dr Sophie Scott, a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, UCL (University College London), and fellow researchers at UCL and Imperial College London, is described in Laugh and the whole world laughs with you — Why the brain just can’t help itself:

The research team played a series sounds to volunteers whilst measuring their brain’s response using an fMRI scanner. Some of the sounds were positive, such as laughter or triumph, whilst others were unpleasant, such as screaming or retching. All of the sounds triggered a response in the volunteer’s brain in the premotor cortical region, which prepares the muscles in the face to respond accordingly, though the response was greater for positive sounds, suggesting that these were more contagious than negative sounds. The researchers believe this explains why we respond to laughter or cheering with an involuntary smile.

“We usually encounter positive emotions, such as laughter or cheering, in group situations, whether watching a comedy programme with family or a football game with friends,” says Dr Scott. “This response in the brain, automatically priming us to smile or laugh, provides a way of mirroring the behaviour of others, something which helps us interact socially. It could play an important role in building strong bonds between individuals in a group.”

The marketing significance of this work isn’t totally clear, but the fact that the sound of laughter produces a reflexive and unconscious smile (and apparent preparation for laughing) suggests that radio and TV advertisers need to pay close attention to the non-verbal part of their sound track. We’ve posted about priming (e.g., Priming the Customer, Thinking about Money) and mirroring (Mirror Marketing: More on Mirror Neurons and others) - this latest work on the effect of laughter and positive sounds is just one more indicator that the subtext of advertising may be as important as the overt message.

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For some people, anticipating pain can be as bad as the real thing. Dread can be a real pain describes research conducted by Dr. Gregory Berns of Emory University. The research is part of the emerging field of neuroeconomics, which addresses the neuroscience of decision making. The work found that some “extreme dreaders” were willing to suffer more pain if it happened immediately vs. waiting a period of time for a lesser pain level. (The “pain” was a fairly mild electric shock which at worst was comparable to a needle jab.) Other individuals who experienced less dread did the logical thing and took the lighter shock even if they had to wait for it.

The brain activity measured during the anticipation phase was actually occuring in the brain’s pain center, according to fMRI used to show dread responses in brain:

The scans showed that brain activity related to dread was localized in the areas of the brain associated with pain. Dread was found in the parts of the pain network linked to attention. This is important because it suggests that dread is not as simple as fear or anxiety, which are emotions controlled by different brain regions.

The findings also showed that the mild and extreme dreaders had different patterns of brain activity. The extreme dreaders had more activity in the attentional parts of the pain matrix, and this activity was seen much earlier in each trial compared to the mild dreaders.

Marketers have long used graphic representations of pain in advertisements. Research on whether an ad can trigger similar dread feelings or create activity in the same pain centers hasn’t been published yet, but it seems likely. Between mirror neurons “simulating” an observed (or even heard) action by another, and pain centers being triggered by thinking about future pain, it’s clear that marketers may have the opportunity to create discomfort among their targets. We see quite a few mild examples of this (e.g., an actor engaging in a common activity and grimacing in pain due to arthritis) as well as some not so mild ones (e.g., Lamisil’s little fungus creature lifting up a toenail… owwww!)

This potential ability to trigger a pain response should be used carefully. Done well, it will probably reinforce the verbal/written content of the ad and perhaps improve recall of the brand and message. Done poorly, it may alienate viewers and/or create a negative association with the brand that will carry all the way to the point of purchase. The Lamisil toenail lifter makes me cringe… but if I had to buy a foot fungicide, would I choose the brand I remember (Lamisil) or another one that is less memorable and more neutral in association? I’ll have to get back to you on that if I’m ever unlucky enough to develop such an affliction. In the meantime, I’d advise advertisers to be aware of the reality of pain anticipation and to use painful imagery with caution.

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A few months ago, we mentioned “mirror neurons“, which fire when a subject watches another subject perform an action. If the subject has performed the action before himself, these neurons will duplicate, or “mirror” the, action in the subject’s brain.

The latest edition of Scientific American Mind has an excellent survey of what we know about mirror neurons, A Revealing Reflection. One of the interesting findings mentioned in the article is that even sounds can trigger mirror neurons if the sound evokes a specific action, like tearing a sheet of paper. Much of the work in this area is being done by Giacomo Rizzolatti, Vittorio Gallese, and Leonardo Fogassi of the University of Parma in Italy, as well as Marco Iacoboni at UCLA, Michael ARbib of USC< and Christian Keysers of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

What all this means to marketers is unclear. However, it may well be that effective use of sounds can enhance the impact of the ad on the viewer. For example, a beverage maker who includes the sound of a bottle cap being popped off, the gurgling of the beverage flowing into the glass, etc. is exciting sympathetic reactions from mirror neurons from viewers/listeners who have performed the same action many times themselves. (Then again, simple Pavlovian conditioning might be at least as important - the same pictures and sounds almost certainly trigger an expectation of a refreshing drink to follow.)

The same article discusses research conducted by Bruno Wicker of the University of the Mediterranean in Marseilles, France. Wicker, using fMRI, found that "feeling disgust and seeing a look of revulsion on someone else's face caused the same set of mirror neurons to fire in the insula, a part of the cortex active in synthesizing convergent information." How these mirror neurons affect perceptions and behavior isn't clear, but some of the effects described in Malcolm Gladwell's Blink suggest that some effect wouldn’t be unlikely. His descriptions of priming, in which behavior is affected by reading words which evoke a subconscious feeling, and his description of mood changes when researchers formed specific facial expressions all imply subtle behavioral effects can be artificially created.

Again, what this emotional mirroring means to marketers is still not known. Since the dawn of advertising photography, advertisers have shown happy faces associated with using their product. While this seems like simple logic (do you want someone quaffing your beverage to look upset or disgusted?), perhaps there’s some neuroscience involved, too - show the happy face, and mirror neurons will fire in viewers’ brains.

Looking for more thoughts on mirror neurons? See Kathy Sierra’s post that covers mirror neurons, emotional contagion, and related topics. Also check Mirror neurons and imitation learning as the driving force behind “the great leap forward” in human evolution by V.S. Ramachandran, and discussion of that article.

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