Abstract
Fueled by early success stories, the neuromarketing domain advanced rapidly during the last 10 years. As exciting new techniques were being adapted from medical research to the commercial domain, many neuroscientists and marketing practitioners have taken the chance to exploit them so as to uncover the answers of the most important marketing questions. Among the available neuroimaging technologies, electroencephalography (EEG) stands out as the less invasive and most affordable method. While not equally precise as other neuroimaging technologies in terms of spatial resolution, it can capture brain activity almost at the speed of cognition. Hence, EEG constitutes a favorable candidate for recording and subsequently decoding the consumers' brain activity. However, despite its wide use in neuromarketing, it cannot provide the complete picture alone. In order to overcome the limitations imposed by a single monitoring method, researchers focus on more holistic approaches. The exploitation of hybrid EEG schemes (e.g., combining EEG with eye-tracking, electrodermal activity, heart rate, and/or other) is ever growing and will hopefully allow neuromarketing to uncover consumers' behavior. Our survey revolves around last-decade hybrid neuromarketing schemes that involve EEG as the dominant modality. Beyond covering the relevant literature and state-of-the-art findings, we also provide future directions on the field, present the limitations that accompany each of the commonly employed monitoring methods and briefly discuss the omni-present ethical scepticizm related to neuromarketing.
Highlights
Neuromarketing is an evolving field that bridges the gap between consumer behavior studies and neuroscience
Within the context of neuromarketing, the most typical approach is to quantify the heart rate variability (HRV) to determine the emotional responses resulting in various emotional indices (Appelhans and Luecken, 2006), that are often combined with the ones derived by Electrodermal activity (EDA)
Very often, neuromarketing studies are based on the assumption that a brain region is inextricably connected to a cognitive process
Summary
Neuromarketing is an evolving field that bridges the gap between consumer behavior studies and neuroscience. In a more strict sense,neuromarketing refers to the “application of neuroscience in the marketing field.” According to this definition, neuromarketing studies should include, among others, the direct use of neuroimaging technology in order to explore a consumer’s response to specific marketing elements (products, packaging, advertising, etc.). Answering questions like “how does a consumer cope with various product alternatives based on subjectively perceived benefits, expenses, and taste?” seems to be the driving force that underlies every (neuro)marketing study Since such a complicated question cannot be answered directly using existing technology, there have been efforts to exploit other cognitive processes that are considered as the crucial factors that modulate decision making. We believe that our work will bring additional benefit to the field serving as a reference guide in the upcoming neuromarketing research
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