The emergence of Neuromarketing

Traditional market research has it’s limitations when one considers the influence of the ‘observer’ on the ‘observed’ when attempting to understand people’s true thoughts and feelings on the product/brand/service being researched. If we could just get into their heads to withdraw a pure brain impulse without the constraints traditional market research introduces in the mechanisms it uses. Enter Neuromarketing…

Neuromarketing is the practice of using technology to measure brain activity in consumer subjects in order to inform the development of products and communications–really to inform the brand’s 4Ps. The premise is that consumer buying decisions are made in split seconds in the subconscious, emotional part of the brain and that by understanding what we like, don’t like, want, fear, are bored by, etc. as indicated by our brain’s reactions to brand stimuli, marketers can design products and communications to better meet “unmet” market needs, connect and drive “the buy”.

FastCompany posted an article recently that explores the issue and the companies that are using this new ’science’. It also suggests a few shortcomings and some interesting ethical concerns.

Neuromarketing is only poised to grow in use and influence. But as the practice makes its way out of the lab and into the real world, at the grocery aisle, onto your computer perhaps…a debate, well beyond marketing, will rage.

What Microsoft’s “racism” teaches us about ourselves

The ether is alive with enraged twits, tweeting and blogging on about Microsoft’s racist blunder. If you’ve not heard the buzz, it has to do with MS photoshopping an advert as it transported it from the US (where it features a white woman, older black man, and an Asian man) to Poland (where it now features a white woman, a young white man with a black hand, and an Asian man). Outrage, disgust!

Here are the two pictures:

Microsoft is pulling the advert, and after investigation discovered that all four of the people responsible for the advert have left the company (how convenient).

I am NOT going to join the clamour of voices shouting racism, though. This is just good business (and bad photoshop), and a bad marketing decision, and a great example of the new world of work (yes, it is all of these things).

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