How game-changing would it be if a business could directly gain insights from the brains of potential customers? This could help them create better products and improve marketing strategies without dealing with biases and other human-based issues. Platforms like XON Bet could utilize insights from Neuromarketing to offer users better experiences, including more attractive odds and a more immersive user experience. People like what they like, and what they like might not always align with what they want to spend money on, Neuromarketing offers the prospect of bridging the gap.
Neuromarketing in the Real World
Margins are often slim in the business world, and the difference between winning and losing can be as simple as choosing the right font or a different shade of your brand’s primary color. Neuromarketing offers the opportunity to measure and quantify things that regular people might be unable to quantify. A focus group of everyday people may be unable to differentiate between their favorite among three shades of blue. Still, neuroscience can directly see what areas of their brains “light up” when seeing certain colors and product offerings.
The importance of precision cannot be overstated in modern marketing, and this reality exists in places and industries you never expected. Take the gaming and gambling space as an example; intense competition in this ecosystem forces online gaming companies to employ Neuromarketing to gain an edge over the competition. Decision-making is unique among humans, and discovering the keys behind how and why we make decisions can be the difference-maker in a competitive space that doesn’t forgive mistakes and missteps.
Does Neuromarketing Work?
As part of the study of how human brains respond to brand-related and advertising stimuli, neuromarketing monitors brainwave activities, changes to the skin, and eye tracking, among other involuntary changes in the human body. The process and concept of applying neuroscience techniques and principles to marketing can be controversial at times. Some people consider this to be immoral and borderline illegal, while many scientists and advertisers doubt the efficacy and output of this concept. Whether neuromarketing works can only be answered by two words – it depends. This concept won’t fix a fundamental problem with your product marketing, it can only help businesses make better decisions based on available data.
Neuromarketing is not a magic concept, nor will it fix a bad campaign. Companies of different sizes will get results based on how much talent and finances they are willing to invest in their neuro-based advertising. This concept also works on a case-by-case basis; some aspects of involuntary human responses reflect and influence our decision-making, but many others play negligible roles in the decision-making process. To get the best out of neuro-based advertising, businesses and advertising agencies need structure around the concept, and “North Star” they can always aim and head towards.
The Pros
Some of the main advantages include the following:
- Genuine feedback,
- Insights,
- Lowering the cost.
Now, let’s discuss them in more detail!
Cost Effectiveness
This form of advertising can be a great way for large companies to streamline their advertising flows and spend money on what works. The initial startup costs for functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machines might be significant, but such machines can reduce costs over time.
Granular Insights
One of the best ways to take a more precise look at consumer behavior, expectations, tendencies, and preferences is through neuro-based marketing. The ability to track every step of a customer’s decision-making process has been shown to help businesses better forecast customer behavior and offer more streamlined products and solutions.
Subconscious Revelations & Honest Feedback
There are things we do not know about ourselves. Similarly, there are aspects of our subconscious we try to avoid and dissociate from. Neuromarketing can help lead to more honest feedback and subconscious revelations that are devoid of human sentiments while focusing on tangible and intangible things that influence decision-making.
The Cons
However, there are some disadvantages too:
(Potentially) Pseudoscience
Lots of the claims from this form of marketing are not easily verifiable, and the insights gained may not always correlate with growth. Many scholars and industry professionals question the importance and influence of this form of marketing because of its potential to be pseudoscience.
Immoral
There’s no shaking the feeling that tracking humans in such a manner can be a violation and give corporations an unfair advantage that can lead to exploitation, especially among the most vulnerable. When does it become weird and ethically questionable to use such personal details to market products?
Reassuring Biases
Advertisers and businesses may use this form of strategising to reassure and reinforce their biases. Unfortunately, neuromarketing can become a tool for many to see what they already think they know. Human biases always influence decision-making; they cannot be completely removed.
The Future of Neuro-Based Marketing
There’s no denying the potential perks of neuromarketing, but there need to be better regulations and rules on what companies and individuals can do and how they go about gathering, storing, and sharing data. The key to harnessing the full potential of this form of advertising is ethical decision-making.
