A friend of mine from Örebro asked me a bit grumpy why Neuromarketing really is that important. Really? Örebro is a Swedish city well known for their little whiny dialect and since I’m from the same city, this is how you talk. Therefore I could see through the question and knew what really actually meant: This is the best I’ve heard for a very long time, tell me more..
When I’m out talking about Neuromarketing at seminars and conferences, I usually say that marketing and analyzes is about to go through a big revolution. Research about brain and behavior related to economics explains why advertising and product launches often fail.
Neuromarketing creates new insights that gives marketing the opportunity to be much more efficient in the future.
But really? What does it mean? What is new and what is affected? Here is a contribution to the debate about what Neuromarketing can mean in the coming years. It’s about the market manager’s role, to make the budget last longer, to get better decision support, to work smarter and to give competitors a tough game. Here are five points about what Neuromarketing really means:
1. Marketing Managers will once again be invited to the management team.
It has been difficult to prove the benefits of advertising and marketing. What business value is created and how can it be measured? The difficulty to measure and follow up has contributed to that many Marketing Managers suddenly become operational creators of content to social media. Neuromarketing will contribute to making marketing questions becoming more strategic again.
2. Marketing budget will last longer.
It is not easy for a Marketing Manager to get the money to last for everything needed. The combination of budget cuts and a fragmented media market is not easy to handle. Multi-screen viewing and new media formats creates the need for more money. Neuromarketing can see what works and enable that the marketing budget lasts longer.
3. Market research will become more important.
Earlier there have been problems to use market research as decision support. Nine out of ten launches fail and it is common to do advertising research without seeing any significant business impact. This despite the fact that conducted surveys has forecasted successes. Modern brain research explains why and gives you better instruments. When market research is getting better by using Neuromarketing it will be used more in management teams.
4. Processes for advertising will be developed.
Today it’s one of the worst functioning processes in a company in the same time as big money is spent. The proof of this is that pre-testing is rare today and companies are satisfied with just a post-test. The reason is lack of time caused by insufficient planning. A pre-test will tell you how it’s going to go. Neuromarketing creates really good pre-tests and can save you big money if you have a good process. The combination of limited budget and a good pre-test will force advertising agencies and advertisers to develop better advertising processes.
5. The major companies will meet better advertising in local markets.
The new Neuromarketing techniques are cheap and easy to use. Previously, only the biggest companies could afford to carry out the studies. Now everyone will have access to the technology. Better advertising will be created everywhere. Neuromarketing is an opportunity for anyone who uses advertising and design as a competitive tool.
But if you really believe in Neuromarketing you can think as my grumpy friend says: It is really about the brain’s autopilot that have created a nice gut feeling about the concept of Neuromarketing :-).
About the author
Magnus Ernestam is co-founder to the Neuromarketing and Insight agency Straylight, where he works as a strategist.
He has an MBA degree and a many years of experience from the combination brands, business and advertising since he has been working as a Brand & Business Director at companies such as Axfood and TeliaSonera.