The time has come to implement a radical shift in how we approach both the customer experience and the employee experience. And it may cause troubles. Since the knowledge base has been assembled and validated by decades of scientific research on cerebral grammatical development and mountains of data produced by behavioral (neuro)sciences. Homo-Sapiens, 300 000 years of Customer Experience by Marc Van Rymenant will propel you into an original, inspiring, passionate universe that is connected to a more livable future that is innovative and nimble. To be, each business must change, via nine reflexes, its idea of the experience into an attitude that is resolutely modern and positive, fully (re)connected to Homo Sapiens, and its cerebral grammar in use for 300.000 years. From the basement to the workplace.
The goal of advertising and marketing is to create want and lust for goods that we don’t necessarily need. The major brands now rely on neuroscience research to understand how our brains function in the twenty-first century. The many stimuli brought on by advertisements are examined through medical imaging. Therefore, the brands have the power to influence our purchasing decisions even when we are unaware of it. So, after « sensory marketing » or even « dopamine marketing, » the fashionable field is known as « neuromarketing. » It has become both essential and prohibited for major corporations.
Our brain is made of three different parties,
The reptile brain
The most ancient brain would naturally be the one that neuromarketing would want to influence. It would be around 500 million years old. He would be responsible for maintaining the essential homeostasis functions required for the creature to survive. The primary concerns of this primitive brain that gave rise to reflex behavior would have been respiration, deglutition, digesting, regulation of heartbeat and temperature, and reproduction. This instinctive brain is also known as a pre-verbal brain since it cannot understand words or language.
Linguistic limbic brain
The limbic system is considered to be the second or intermediary brain. This brain has around 60 million years. It would manage more complicated tasks related to unconscious memory of all of our experiences. It would be the center of our emotions. His role? Memorize our activities in order to repeat pleasant behaviors and avoid unpleasant behaviors.
The Neocortex
The brain that serves as the foundation for thought is the neocortex. It is also known as the « logical brain » since it will give us the ability to reason and analyze our thoughts. He would also be in control of language.
The two brains that would actually be controlling us would be the limbic and reptilian brains. The most evolved part of the brain is the neocortex, yet it also processes information the slowly. The limbic and reptilian brains will take control in stressful situations or when there are conflicts between the different brains. We would therefore be largely irrational. Because they are founded on a declarative statement, traditional marketing studies that are qualitative or quantitative would not be very reliable. Simply said, most people wouldn’t act on what they say since they wouldn’t be aware of all the decisions they make at the time of purchase.
In this paradigm, it is simple to comprehend how brands frequently engage in neuromarketing.
The earliest neuromarketing studies date back to the 1970s in the United States.
Researchers had just discovered, using Electro Encéphalography (E.E.G. ), that the advertisements that were most easily remembered were those that produced the greatest amount of cerebral activity. In actuality, the word « neuromarketing » first appeared in 2004, in line with studies on how the human brain responds to brand impacts conducted by American neurolog Lead Montague.
This famous experiment aim to determine 67 people’s responses to the brands Pepsi and Coca-Cola. The testers then proceeded to a blind tasting followed by a tasting where only the Pepsi or Coca brand was revealed, and finally a tasting where both brands were on display. Images from the IRM showed that when people drank Pepsi up close, their « putamen, » a primitive part of the brain that responds to immediate pleasure, was strongly activated. In this combination, 50% of the test subjects confirmed that they preferred Pepsi. The previously activated « putamen » did not continue to function, however, after the brands were revealed. Then, 75% of test subjects said they preferred the Coca-Cola brand. The study has therefore shown that preference was more for the brand that one thought of tasting than for the flavor.
Some marketing concepts that have been confirmed by neuroscience?
The reptilian brain is very sensitive to contrast since it was adapted to surviving in adverse environments where it hunted the prey or the predator. A visual contrast, such as a logo with vibrant colors on a somber background, or a semantic difference, such as a statement advocating a small effort for a large reward, are examples of marketing strategies that have an effect on the reptilian brain.
The fear of missing out or losing out is heavily used in marketing, mostly on e-commerce websites. Again, the reptilian brain’s survival instinct is being activated. It is now common practice to elicit a sense of urgency by using limited-time offers and promotions, stock displays, payment terms on product pages, and sales of limited quantities of goods. Who has never succumbed to the exhortations of the renowned booking site? « X people are looking at this hotel’s website, » « Forte demand, » or even « More than one room is available at this establishment. » Being honest, we move about and stumble a lot right now.
It is sufficient to cause the chord of emotion to vibrate in order to engage the limbic system in conversation. And ideally, for the experience to be fully ingrained in memory, the emotions should change through time. Or, nothing more potent than stories can do this. The stories stick in your head and evoke emotions!
What are the limits of neuromarketing?
Price
Even though technology allowed costs to be reduced over the past decade, neuromarketing studies continue to be troubling. The most expensive IRMf machines may go into the millions of dollars. Regarding the cost of an IRMf study, it may exceed $10,000 for a sample size of 20 people. Recognizing that a coefficient multiplicator is sometimes required to obtain a meaningful échantillon, neuromarketing continues to be the preferred strategy of businesses with large resources.
Distortion and accuracy
Neuromarketing is not a precise science. Testing a small number of people who are aware that they are cowards will never provide researchers a clear picture of what consumers were thinking at the time they made a purchase.
Ethic question
In France, using scanners and IRM for commercial purposes is prohibited by article 16-14 of the civil code. French medicine struggles to integrate neuromarketing, which is opposed to Hippocrates’ teachings. The strategy employed by the big groups is to externalize their research by focusing on the experimental nature of their work.