Week 6 continued

Question 1

What is neuromarketing?

Answer 1

The commercial application of consumer neuroscience — using brain-based tools to optimize marketing, advertising, and product strategies.

Question 2

Where does consumer neuroscience fit within science?

Answer 2

At the intersection of neuroscience, psychology, and economics, closely related to behavioral economics and marketing.

Question 3

What are the limitations of traditional self-report methods (e.g., surveys, interviews)?

Answer 3

Inaccurate self-knowledge of mental states:
People often don’t fully understand their own thoughts or emotions — much of consumer behavior is driven by unconscious processes.

Example: A consumer might say they prefer a brand because it’s “high quality,” but in reality, their choice was influenced by color, familiarity, or emotional association rather than rational evaluation.

Why it matters: Traditional surveys assume that people have introspective access to their motivations, but neuroscience shows this isn’t always true.

Unwillingness to report them:

➡️ Even when people know what they feel or think, they may be reluctant to share it due to social desirability or privacy concerns.

Example: In a focus group about luxury goods, participants might claim they buy expensive brands for “quality,” while actually being motivated by status or peer perception — which they hesitate to admit.

Why it matters: This leads to biased data that reflects what people think sounds good, not what truly drives their behavior.

Poor prediction of future behavior
People are bad at forecasting how they’ll behave later because intentions often don’t match actions.

Example: A person might report high interest in joining a gym or buying an eco-friendly product, but later fail to follow through once faced with real costs or effort.

Why it matters: This makes purchase intention surveys unreliable indicators of actual sales or engagement.

Questioning changes the experience itself:
If you’re watching a funny commercial, you might just laugh and enjoy it.
But if someone interrupts and asks, “Do you like this ad? Why?”,
→ you stop feeling the emotion and start analyzing it.
→ This changes your emotional response — you’re no longer experiencing the ad naturally.

Question 4

Why are traditional behavioral observations limited?

Answer 4

1️⃣ The same behavior can come from different psychological processes

That means: two people can do the same thing, but for different reasons.

Example:
Two people buy an iPhone.

Person A buys it because it’s rationally a good product (performance, quality).

Person B buys it because it’s emotional (they want status, identity, or to feel cool).

If you only look at behavior (“they both bought an iPhone”), you’d miss the reason behind it — which affects how to market to them in the future.

Different behaviors can come from the same psychological process

That means: two people can do different things, but be motivated by the same feeling or need.

Example:
You see two people doing different things:

One eats a tub of ice cream.

The other goes on a date.

These are different behaviors, but they might come from the same need — both are ways to feel better after stress.

→ That’s the second limitation: different behavior ≠ different reason.

Marketers need to understand the psychological reason behind behavior — otherwise, they misinterpret motives and make less accurate predictions.

Question 5

What is consumer neuroscience?

Answer 5

The scientific study of consumer behavior using physiological and neuroscientific methods to understand unconscious processes behind decision-making.

Question 6

: What does the iceberg model illustrate in neuroscience-based marketing?

Answer 6

Traditional methods only capture the observable, conscious surface, whereas neuromarketing explores the much larger unconscious part of consumer thought.

Question 7

What were the main findings of Plassmann et al. (2008) about wine and price perception?

Answer 7

Participants liked wine more when told it was expensive ($90 vs. $10), even though it was the same.

Brain scans (mOFC activation) showed price influenced pleasure, not the wine itself.
→ Demonstrates how expectations affect experience.

Question 8

What did Berns & Moore (2012) discover about music prediction?

Answer 8

Brain activation in nucleus accumbens (NAcc) while listening to songs predicted sales success better than self-reports.
→ Shows neural data can forecast consumer behavior better than conscious opinions.

Question 9

What is the myth vs. reality about neuroscience in marketing?

Answer 9

Myth: Neuroscience will replace traditional marketing research.

Reality: It will complement and enhance existing methods, not replace them.

Question 10

What does eye-tracking measure in consumer neuroscience?

Answer 10

It measures where and how long consumers look at different elements of a visual display (e.g., shelf, ad, or product) to infer attention and visual engagement.

Question 11

What does eye-tracking data for shelf displays reveal?

Answer 11

: It shows which products, prices, or labels attract attention and for how long — helping marketers optimize placement and packaging design.

Question 12

What is in-store mobile eye-tracking used for?

Answer 12

It tracks shoppers’ visual attention as they move through stores, showing how layout, signage, and color influence purchase decisions.

Question 13

What was the purpose of Plassmann et al. (2008)’s wine experiment?

Answer 13

To test how price information affects perceived pleasantness of identical wines using fMRI.

Question 14

What did Plassmann et al. (2008) find?

Answer 14

Participants liked wines more when told they were expensive (€90 vs. €10), even though they were the same. This was due to greater brain activation in the medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC) — linked to pleasure.

Question 15

What does this experiment show about marketing placebo effects?

Answer 15

Price → Neural activity → Experience — marketing cues can literally change how the brain experiences products, not just how we rationalize them afterward.

Question 16

What do physiological measures during decision-making reveal?

Answer 16

They uncover the underlying perceptions and mental processes that guide choices, beyond what self-reports can capture.

Question 17

: How are brain measures used to tailor video ads?

Answer 17

: EEG tracks moment-by-moment engagement, identifying the most captivating scenes for ad optimization.

Question 18

What did the New Balance ad study reveal using EEG?

Answer 18

Compressing the ad from 30s to 15s increased engagement by 22% (from 6.9 → 8.4), showing how brain data can improve creative effectiveness.

Question 19

What does Prediction mean in consumer neuroscience?

Answer 19

Using neural measures collected in labs (like fMRI or EEG) to predict market behavior, such as product success or ad performance.

Question 20

What did Berns & Moore (2012) discover about music prediction?

Answer 20

Brain activation in the nucleus accumbens (NAcc) during listening predicted future song sales, while self-reported liking did not.

Question 21

What is neuroforecasting?

Answer 21

Using brain activity patterns (especially in reward areas like the NAcc) to predict market-level outcomes, such as sales or popularity.

Question 22

How effective are neurometrics compared to traditional surveys for predicting revenue?

Answer 22

According to Mars (2017), biometrics predicted ad sales with 78% accuracy, versus 58% for surveys.

Question 23

What is the overall value of consumer neuroscience tools like EEG, fMRI, and eye-tracking?

Answer 23

They reveal unconscious drivers of behavior, enhance ad effectiveness, forecast market success, and complement (not replace) traditional methods.