What You Really Want to Buy

Marketing goes to the next level by hooking consumers up to machines and reading their brains. But do the results tell the whole story?

Forget focus groups. Companies that want feedback on a product are getting inside consumers' heads—literally. The latest rage in marketing involves harnessing a test subject to a narrow shelf, securing the head tightly, and introducing the body into the tube of a $3 million functional magnetic resonance imaging machine (FMRI). For about $1,000 per hour, researchers flash images for their tightly trussed subjects, play advertisements, and read promotional literature. All the while, they study the second-by-second response of the brain.

This is neuromarketing. And researchers from the consulting firm of FKF Applied Research in Los Angeles to Neurosense in Oxford, Britain, are using the technique to study what happens in different regions of the brain. Activity in the almond-shaped amydala, for example, shows early alerts of fear and danger. The challenge is to use that data to determine whether, say, people are likely to watch an episode of Viacom's (VIA) South Park or buy a fuel-efficient Honda Motor hybrid car (see BusinessWeek.com, 10/08/07).

If this sounds like a golden opportunity for marketers to hawk questionable conclusions from brain studies as unfiltered truth, it is. Researchers predict that neuromarketing will produce plenty of hype bordering on fantasy in the coming year or two. Despite this, many swear by the technology. Unlike information culled from traditional focus groups, the signals issuing from the brain can point to what the subjects are really thinking and feeling. Brain scans bypass the pride and shame and peer pressure that lead subjects in focus groups to edit their responses. In that sense, the scans are close cousins of lie detectors.

But like those tests, brain scans are open to different interpretations. Marketing insights hinge on the scientists' reading of the jagged peaks of brain activity, the electrical outbursts in regions associated with fear, disgust, and desire. It's a cinch to see activity in certain parts of the brain, says Roger Dooley, author of NeuroScienceMarketing.com, an industry blog. But it's not always easy to predict behavior. Say a voter's brain appears to sink into deep relaxation during a commercial for Presidential candidates John Edwards or Mitt Romney. Does that mean the subject plans to vote for someone else, or not to vote at all? For some, it may signal support for the candidate. But this can be hard to prove. "The testing that needs to be done will relate that brain activity to real world data," Dooley says.

Neuro Engagement Scientists analyze four stages of brain behavior during these tests, says Joshua Freedman, a psychiatrist and chief science officer of FKF. The first stage is "active filtering." This is where people decide, often subconsciously, not to pay attention to something. Most of us filter out the vast majority of signals bombarding our senses. The next step is "neuro engagement." This occurs as we're drawn toward something, often wanting to buy or consume it.

At this point, Freedman says, the brain typically pushes back. This is called "counterforce." That's the Dudley Do-Right in our heads telling us that the Hummer we're lusting after is a gas guzzler. "You have lots of different circuits looking at things in parallel, and reaching consensus," Freedman says. The result of this consensus is "realignment," which is how the brain responds to overcome "counterforce." Maybe the Hummer is a safe car, part of our brain might argue.

Not all players in the industry stick their human subjects into a noisy, claustrophobic FMRI tube. EmSense, a San Francisco (Calif.) company, opts for a much lighter and cheaper electrocephalogram (EEG). Embedded in a tool that sits on the face like a pair of glasses, the EEG provides a less detailed report on brain activity. (FKF's Freedman compares it to guessing what's going on inside a stadium from the roars and cheers you hear from the parking lot.) But what the EEG lacks in detail it makes up for in cost savings. A standard FMRI test for a bank or a consumer electronics company might study a couple dozen people and cost $50,000. Tests with EmSense's EEG, by contrast, can include hundreds of people at a fraction of the cost. In addition to brain activity, it registers a host of physical responses, including breathing, blinking, and physical motion. What's more, the subjects can move around. "We can measure brainwaves when kids are jumping on a couch," says Tim Hong, EmSense vice-president of operations.

Brain Business This helps EmSense measure players' brain responses to video games—a big part of their business. Using EmSense data, gamemakers can decide how loud to make explosions. They can see at which point the gore on the screen passes the point of excitement and excites disgust.

Jeffrey Bardzell is a professor of informatics, or the study of how we collect and use information, at Indiana University. He says any neuroscientific measure, taken alone, "is unreliable." That's why he combines them with other data. Funded in part by One to One Interactive, a Boston marketing consultancy, Bardzell's team is preparing tests to compare EEG signals from the brain with data pouring from other sensors, including galvanic skin responses, blood pressure, eye movement, and heart beat. To gather the data, Bardzell's team plans to wear vests equipped with sensors as they go about their daily routines.

In the early stages, at least, the Indiana team will leave the tiara-shaped EEGs in the lab. But as neuromarketing spreads, don't be surprised to see brain scanners tracking the neurology of everyday life.

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