A review of neuromarketing origins as a new marketing research method

Abstract

We give a literature review of neuromarketing and the origins of its emergence as a new marketing research method. We attempted to establish a general descriptive summary of relevant literature that stresses the definition of neuromarketing as a new marketing discipline and retraces its origins and foundations since and before the advent of neuroeconomics, as the latter is considered to be a precursor. The purpose of this paper is to define what neuromarketing is from the point of view of academics and practitioners, how and when it started to chart its path into academia and the business world, by drawing attention to the ever first attempts to use uncommon neuroscience tools to assess consumer’s behavior. This paper draws a timeline of neuromarketing origins and a summary of the first attempts of consumer’s behavior observations, which relied on neural and physiological responses.