Consumer Neuroscience Research Articles

The value of consumer neuroscience research for contemporary marketing knowledge.

The value of consumer neuroscience research for contemporary marketing knowledge.

Consumer neuroscience on branding and packaging: A review and future research agenda

AbstractIn an environment of extreme competition, it is essential to have a differentiated brand that adds value to consumer communications through packaging. Neuroscience research techniques have undergone remarkable development, facilitating the understanding of consumer brain mechanisms in the choice and purchase decision‐making process. This article presents the first systematic and specific literature review of the branding and packaging from the consumer neuroscience viewpoint. The main objective is to carry out analysis focused on the study of packaging and branding from the field of consumer neuroscience. We used a hybrid methodology. First, a descriptive bibliometric study is applied based on the Web of Science platform, where results confirm that the study field is in a phase of an exponential growth and with high fragmentation of the literature, consistent with its multidisciplinary origin. Using data mining for nodal network analysis with the VOSviewer programme, four clusters of authors and five thematic areas of interest were identified. Finally, a content review provided a list of more than 50 relevant findings in the study field, which are presented through a novel classification approach based on key mental processes in branding and packaging research (attention and memory, emotions and motivation, and reward and decision‐making systems). Thus, it has been possible to classify, order and discuss them, facilitating a comparative analysis and suggesting a possible future research agenda. This research intents to be a guide for branding and packaging professionals and researchers who are interested in learning about the use of consumer neuroscience techniques and theories.

A Bibliometric Analysis of Consumer Neuroscience towards Sustainable Consumption.

Consumer neuroscience is a new paradigm for studying consumer behavior, focusing on neuroscientific tools to explore the underlying neural processes and behavioral implications of consumption. Based on the bibliometric analysis tools, this paper provides a review of progress in research on consumer neuroscience during 2000-2021. In this paper, we identify research hotspots and frontiers in the field through a statistical analysis of bibliometric indicators, including the number of publications, countries, institutions, and keywords. Aiming at facilitating carbon neutrality via sustainable consumption, this paper discusses the prospects of applying neuroscience to sustainable consumption. The results show 364 publications in the field during 2000-2021, showing a rapid upward trend, indicating that consumer neuroscience research is gaining ground. The majority of these consumer neuroscience studies chose to use electroencephalogram tools, accounting for 63.8% of the total publications; the cutting-edge research mainly involved event-related potential (ERP) studies of various marketing stimuli interventions, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)-based studies of consumer decision-making and emotion-specific brain regions, and machine-learning-based studies of consumer decision-making optimization models.

Application of selected neuroscientific methods in consumer sensory analysis: A review.

Neuromarketing or consumer neuroscience is a relatively new market research subdiscipline that has gained popularity among consumer behavior scientists in the past two decades or so. It combines neurobiology with behavioral psychology to understand consumer behavior, more specifically about their decisions related to choices/preferences and purchase. The purpose of this review is to explore the potential of using neuroscientific methods for consumer sensory science research. By no means, this is an exhaustive review hindered by the fact that there are countless articles on neuromarketing and consumer neuroscience in the literature. The author has tried to show the applicability of neuroscientific methods in consumer sensory sciences, specifically electroencephalography and eye tracking, which could potentially "complement" the sensory methodologies to gain better consumer insight. Both these techniques are relatively inexpensive, portable, and minimally invasive techniques that are already being used by some sensory scientists. They could be incorporated with ease in the research portfolio of consumer sensory researchers who would like to use them to study consumer affect. It is recommended that the researchers use proper experimental design that takes into consideration the confounding variables as much as possible. The two methods mentioned before have been proven to be relatively reliable and repeatable. Lastly, these methods would also require ethical oversight because of the involvement of human subjects.

Factors limiting the application of consumer neuroscience: A systematic review

AbstractNeuromarketing is perceived as burgeoning innovation in marketing research which facilitates understanding consumer behaviour and decision‐making. Given this potential, still, most enterprises resist implementing neuromarketing techniques. Therefore, this study aims to identify the determinants that limits the application of neuromarketing. An extensive literature review was performed on databases such as Emerald, Jstor, Sage, Scopus and Web of Science. The inclusion criteria are grounded upon the ‘Population Intervention Comparison Outcome Study’ procedure and articles restricted to the English language, published between 2007 and July 2022 and indexed under peer‐reviewed journals. A total of 36 research articles are included and not even a single study was obtained from Mediterranean & Middle East. Sixteen key determinants were acknowledged under the subcategory of psychological and operational variables as presented in the conceptual framework. These identified variables trigger psychological and operation constraints in decision making, thereby limiting the application of neuromarketing decisions. This study directs the need for a general level of cognizance and acknowledgment about neuromarketing, further developing the innovation culture in business corporates and affiliate marketing research needs to neuromarketing techniques.

Communicating the Value of Fan Identity in the Sport Industry: Commentary on Consumer Neuroscience Possible Research Ideas

The sport industry has an enormous influence on today’s society, and the various media platforms and stakeholders have a considerable share of that influence. Sport communication has an essential part in that impact. The strong identification consumers create and develop with sports brands has a huge meaning in their lives. In the sphere of consumer neuroscience, there are few studies on the sport industry. This commentary launches possible research ideas, namely about the importance of brand strength in consumers’ minds, as well as the true impact that consumer identification (i.e., fan identity) has on the sport industry.

Using Event-Related Potentials (ERP) to identify the purchase intention of a consumer for familiar brands

Several neurological processes are undergoing on a conscious and subconscious level every time a consumer likes or dislikes a product. There is presently significant research in Consumer Neuroscience based on consumer behaviour and understanding of these processes. In this study, we have used Electroencephalography (EEG) and Event-Related Potentials (ERP) to capture consumer responses to highly familiar product images. EEG analysed from the 27 participants was used to extract P1, N1, P300, N400 and Late Posterior components. The analysis showed that the early ERP components viz., P1, N1 and P300 can differentiate between consumer liking and disliking of products. In contrast, the late ERP components N400 and Late Posterior components could not differentiate in the highly familiar product category. The results indicate that after continuous exposure, consumer preference towards highly-familiar products occurs as a part of automatic, unconscious mental processes irrespective of the product properties. Further research in this direction can test for the transference of consumer preference: from a conscious mental process to a subconscious mental process due to excessive and continuous product exposure and marketing repetition. Our study demonstrates that consumer behaviour in response to highly-familiar products can be classified using early ERP components only.

A framework for application of consumer neuroscience in pro-environmental behavior change interventions.

Most consumers are aware that climate change is a growing problem and admit that action is needed. However, research shows that consumers’ behavior often does not conform to their value and orientations. This value-behavior gap is due to contextual factors such as price, product design, and social norms as well as individual factors such as personal and hedonic values, environmental beliefs, and the workload capacity an individual can handle. Because of this conflict of interest, consumers have a hard time identifying the true drivers of their behavior, as they are either unaware of or unwilling to acknowledge the processes at play. Therefore, consumer neuroscience methods might provide a valuable tool to uncover the implicit measurements of pro-environmental behavior (PEB). Several studies have already defined neurophysiological differences between green and non-green individuals; however, a behavior change intervention must be developed to motivate PEB among consumers. Motivating behavior with reward or punishment will most likely get users engaged in climate change action via brain structures related to the reward system, such as the amygdala, nucleus accumbens, and (pre)frontal cortex, where the reward information and subsequent affective responses are encoded. The intensity of the reward experience can be increased when the consumer is consciously considering the action to achieve it. This makes goal-directed behavior the potential aim of behavior change interventions. This article provides an extensive review of the neuroscientific evidence for consumer attitude, behavior, and decision-making processes in the light of sustainability incentives for behavior change interventions. Based on this review, we aim to unite the current theories and provide future research directions to exploit the power of affective conditioning and neuroscience methods for promoting PEB engagement.

The application of mobile functional near-infrared spectroscopy for marketing research – a guideline

Purpose To advance marketing research and practice, this study aims to examine the application of the innovative, mobile-applicable neuroimaging method – mobile functional near-infrared spectroscopy (mfNIRS) – in the field of marketing research, providing comprehensive guidelines and practical recommendations. Design/methodology/approach A general review and investigation of when and how to use mfNIRS in business-to-consumer and business-to-business marketing settings is used to illustrate the utility of mfNIRS. Findings The research findings help prospective marketing and consumer neuroscience researchers to structure mfNIRS experiments, perform the analysis and interpret the obtained mfNIRS data. Research implications The application of mfNIRS offers opportunities for marketing research that allow the exploration of neural processes and associated behaviour of customers in naturalistic settings. Practical implications The application of mfNIRS as a neuroimaging method enables the investigation of unconscious neural processes that control customer behaviour and can act as process variables for companies. Originality/value This is one of the first studies to provide comprehensive guidelines and applied practical recommendations concerning when and how to apply mfNIRS in marketing research.

Analysis And Evaluation Of Consumers’ Cognitive Responses To Visual And Gustatory Stimuli For Neuromarketing Application

Neuromarketing merges viewpoints of marketing, neuroscience, economics, choice hypothesis that are required to analyze the psychology of consumers’ preference to product development. The traditional methods involve product ratings, conducting questionnaire surveys that stumble upon verbal declarations provided by the vendees. Consumer Neuroscience describes the emotional, cognitive aspects that form the base of human decision making. Our study aims to utilize the neuroscientific information that distinguishes contrasts between healthy subjects’ EEG signals for examining the brain activity during visual and gustatory stimuli of different flavours of a beverage brand. The EEG montage assigned according to brain-region-specific localization draws out the subjects’ true elicited subconscious response regardless of whether the subject attempts to control his/her affective state. The results showed the activation of theta and delta bands of EEG signals during the given stimuli. These elicited signal variations can be used to identify the best favoured item for successful product dispatch and reduction in loss. Another major application is directed towards the customization of liquid food intake of locked-in, comatose, vegetative state patients by observing their brain response to the various fluid intake and determining the best response among them. This aids physicians to put the patients on a path to recovery.

Use of Consumer Neuroscience in the Choice of Aromatisation as Part of the Shopping Atmosphere and a Way to Increase Sales Volume

The point of purchase is considered to be one of the few communication channels that is not yet saturated, and it has a relatively large potential for the future. A pleasant smell is also part of the shopping atmosphere. How smell affects customer behaviour and purchasing decisions is addressed by a relatively young scientific field, one of the existing kinds of sensory marketing—aroma marketing, otherwise called aromachology. Smell has mainly a subconscious influence; therefore, its examination is appropriate to be carried out using consumer neuroscience tools. This paper examined the perception of the shopping atmosphere in Slovak grocery shops and comprehensive interdisciplinary research on the impact of selected aromatic compounds on the cognitive and affective processes of the consumer, as well as the evaluation of the effectiveness of their implementation in food retail establishments. At the end of the paper, we recommend the possibilities of effective selection and the implementation of aromatisation of different premises, by which the retailer can achieve not only a more positive perception of the shopping atmosphere, but also an increase in retail turnover in individual sales sections.

The searching artificial intelligence: Consumers show less aversion to algorithm‐recommended search product

AbstractThough artificial intelligence (AI) recommendation is a hot topic in recent marketing research, previous research has shown a convergent tendency for aversion to AI recommendation. It is imperative to find ways to promote AI usage and reduce consumers’ AI aversion. This study fills this void by exploring the effect of AI (vs. human) recommenders on consumers’ preferences for search versus experience products in the context of e‐commerce. Two studies provide convergent evidence that consumers show less avoidance of algorithms when recommending search products compared to experience products. A behavioral experiment (Study 1, N = 112) validates that consumers are less likely to purchase experience products recommended by AI, while there are no significant differences between AI versus human recommenders when recommending search products. Using event‐related potential (ERP), a further consumer neuroscience study (Study 2, N = 26) shows that consumers have a higher level of cognitive conflict (i.e., a larger magnitude of N2) when AI (vs. human) recommends experience products, while the effect disappears for search products. This paper shows that for search products, marketers can obtain similar evaluations using AI recommenders, which is relatively cheaper and more time‐saving compared with human recommenders. Therefore, our work provides important implications for theory and practice on e‐commerce and marketing communication.

Skin conductance analysis applied to advertising: challenges and possibilities with low-cost Technologies / Análise da condutância da pele aplicada à publicidade: desafios e possibilidades com tecnologias de baixo custo

The performance evaluation processes of advertising campaigns have become increasingly complex and necessary, in the face of a more competitive scenario. The present work starts the discussion about the possibilities of conducting studies that involve advertising using an affordable technology for skin conductance analysis. Some barriers and applications are examined. Preliminary comparisons between lower cost equipment indicate a feasible possibility for development in the field of consumer neuroscience.

Neuromarketing and Eye Tracking in Women's Fashion Buying Decision Making

In recent years, the combination of research methods in neuroscience and neuromarketing and their applications has resulted in a large body of academic and marketing work in an explosion of opportunity for in-depth studies of the brain. The purpose of this article is to provide academic marketing researchers and professionals in the private sector with a methodological reading grid so that they can assess the feasibility, implementation conditions, relevance or even the added value of using consumer neuroscience through the use of tracking. eye on choices and preferences in women's fashion purchase decision making. Marketing and consumer behavior constitute fields of investigation for which understanding the brain dynamics underlying attention, motivation and decision making represents an added value. For this reason, it is essential to understand what it means to use tools to investigate brain activity in an ethical, technical, methodological and financial way, as well as at the level of data analysis and interpretation.

Unveiling Neuromarketing and Its Research Methodology

Neuromarketing is the union of cognitive psychology, which studies mental processes, neurology and neurophysiology, which study the functioning and responses of the brain and body physiology to external stimuli, and marketing, which studies valuable exchanges, to explain marketing effects on customers’ and consumers’ behaviours and on buying and decision processes. It includes a set of research techniques that, by observing and evaluating how the brain and other body parts respond, avoids possible biases and provides truthful and objective information on consumer subconscious. The term “consumer neuroscience” covers academic approaches using techniques such as fMRI, Eye Tracking, or EED. The objectives of this entry are to show what neuromarketing is and what added value it brings to the study of consumer behaviour and purchase decision processes. The conclusions show a favourable future and positive attitudes towards neuromarketing.

Neuroscience research in consumer behavior: A review and future research agenda

AbstractConsumer neuroscience is a growing field in both marketing and consumer behavior research. The number of articles published on the topic has increased exponentially in the last 15 years. However, there is still no comprehensive analysis of the literature highlighting the main constructs, trends and research gaps found in such a large collection of papers. Therefore, this paper provides a text mining (TM) analysis that clusters and systematizes the complex and dispersed information of 469 articles, using the correlated topic model algorithm (CTM). Results show that “consumer neuroscience”, “brand memory”, and “willingness to buy” are the most relevant topics in the field. This study also reveals that the literature has been focusing on ethical concerns as well as on controversial concerns in the use of consumer neuroscience techniques. We include a final section on future research questions and opportunities that emerged from the conducted research.

A picture says more than a thousand words: Using consumer neuroscience to study instagram users' responses to influencer advertising

AbstractCompanies are increasingly relying on influencer marketing as a relevant pillar of their marketing communication strategy. It is therefore of vital importance to practitioners to understand better under what conditions a larger number of followers can trigger more positive responses in consumers than a smaller number and vice versa. Through a laboratory study, the authors recorded simultaneously eye‐tracking and electroencephalogram data from 109 participants to test the research question with a 2 (type of influencer: micro vs. meso) × 2 (argument quality: weak vs. strong) between‐subject design using mediated moderated linear regression analysis. The results highlight that the photo of the influencer using the product attracts more attention (i.e., fixation percentage) in the weak (vs. strong) argument quality only for micro‐ and not for meso‐influencers. Moreover, we found a statistically significant index of moderated mediation through the level of attention, which suggests that the percentage of fixations on the photo mediates the joint effect of influencer type and argument quality on behavioral activation system (BAS). Specifically, we found that when the advertising post presents weak argument quality the enhanced attention to the photo of the micro‐influencer leads to an increase in the BAS, with possible implications on advertising effectiveness and online message design. Our findings offer important theoretical and practical contributions to the influencer marketing domain by showing how the different verbal and visual elements of influencer posts affect Instagram users' responses to such posts.

Neuroscientific Research Methods and Techniques in Consumer Research

The application of neurophysiological techniques to marketing and consumer research has seen tremendous growth in recent years. To provide a comprehensive overview of neuroscientific methods, the authors first review extant conceptual and empirical studies on neuromarketing and consumer neuroscience, based on these the rationale, features, and applications of neuroscientific techniques are systematically summarized. Next, the authors discuss how neurophysiological methods were applied to the research on customers’ cognition, emotion, and behavioral responses to marketing stimuli, and illustrate how neuromarketing studies extend the knowledge boundary and contribute to marketing theories and practices. The limitations of current neuromarketing tools, studies, and methodology are concluded as well, and future directions are presented accordingly. This paper contributes to the literature by offering a clear research insight into the application of neurophysiological methods. By articulating principles, methods, contributions, and directions of neuromarketing, this paper may benefit the development of neuroscientific tools being a more well-established and commonly used marketing research approach and offers a guide to scholars who are dedicated to consumer neuroscience research.

An EEG-Based Neuromarketing Approach for Analyzing the Preference of an Electric Car

This study evaluates consumer preference from the perspective of neuroscience when a choice is made among a number of cars, one of which is an electric car. Consumer neuroscience contributes to a systematic understanding of the underlying information processing and cognitions involved in choosing or preferring a product. This study aims to evaluate whether neural measures, which were implicitly extracted from brain activities, can be reliable or consistent with self-reported measures such as preference or liking. In an EEG-based experiment, the participants viewed images of automobiles and their specifications. Emotional and attentional stimuli and the participants' responses, in the form of decisions made, were meticulously distinguished and analyzed via signal processing techniques, statistical tests, and brain mapping tools. Long-range temporal correlations (LRTCs) were also calculated to investigate whether the preference of a product could affect the dynamic of neuronal fluctuations. Statistically significant spatiotemporal dynamical differences were then evaluated between those who select an electric car (which seemingly demands specific memory and long-term attention) and participants who choose other cars. The results showed increased PSD and central-parietal and central-frontal coherences at the alpha frequency band for those who selected the electric car. In addition, the findings showed the emergence of LRTCs or the ability of this group to integrate information over extended periods. Furthermore, the result of clustering subjects into two groups, using statistically significant discriminative EEG measures, was associated with the self-report data. The obtained results highlighted the promising role of intrinsically extracted measures on consumers' buying behavior.

Emotional contagion triggered by online consumer reviews: Evidence from a neuroscience study

People tend to align with the emotional state of the person that is talking to them (the observed). Similarly, while processing information consumers can also experience this emotional contagion. Emotional contagion can activate in those who process information (the observer) similar responses in the autonomic nervous system and the neural responses as in those who create such information (the observed), triggering a certain level of arousal. Neuroscience enables researchers to study emotional contagion by monitoring the activation of neural structures and physiological responses. This study draws on the theory of arousal to investigate how different combinations of online consumer review (OCR) valence can trigger different emotions and customer experiences in the observer (the one who reads the OCRs). This study conducts a consumer neuroscience experiment to monitor emotional arousal. The physiological analyses (through skin conductance response) confirm that the emotional arousal of the observer aligns with that of the observed. The neural analyses (through electroencephalography) show the valence of the arousal, which indicates that negative OCRs activate arousal and pleasure in the observer, while positive OCRs are associated with arousal deactivation and displeasure.