The Latest Neuromarketing Insights made actionable

We’ve probably all been there; for months, you’ve been looking forward to watch a new movie that just came out. When you’re about to see the movie, though, your friend who just saw it tells you how it ends. Well, when that happens to me, I tend to get angry because I assume the movie will not be as fun anymore. Sounds logical right? If you already know the outcome, then why still watch the movie?

We might assume that it is because of this reason that the publishers of the movie ‘Avengers: Endgame’ communicated the following warning to fans upon the release of their movie: “When you see Endgame in the coming weeks, please don’t spoil it for others, the same way you wouldn’t want it spoiled to you” (Kooser, 2019).

Media in every form bombards us constantly with messages promoting green, environmentally responsible products that consumer goods companies want us to buy. Many of those products have a sticker price significantly higher than traditional, less eco-friendly brands and products. Exactly how much of a premium are today’s consumers willing to pay in order to live their values as responsible earth inhabitants, and how do producers approach them with an attractive marketing message? In short, how do our products avoid fading into the trees in a sea of green products? 

You may have heard the phrase “If you build it, they will come.” This assumes that the marketeer knows best and the market will recognize this and come to buy. If you, the marketeer, are in love with a product, it’s natural to project that love onto your target audience. However, it may be the right product at the wrong time, or just a product that doesn’t meet customers’ needs.

Marketing managers are only human, and humans have their own personal preferences. These preferences can become a problem, however, when they project them onto a target market that may or may not share their preferences. As a result, they may miss out on capturing sales for a product that really resonates with their audience, while they focus on marketing something that is not as appealing to their prospects. This tendency is called the false consensus effect, or FCE. 

Let’s say that you’re about to buy a new shirt or dress for a fancy dinner party, which brand would you choose? 

RAFUO or rafuo?

Which one did you like best? Chances are that, when looking for a conspicuous purchase as in this example, you’d choose RAFUO because it looks more premium. It is the extent to which the brand looked premium that helped sell the conspicuous product. Psychologists discovered that uppercase characters have a subtle, yet consistent effect on how premium a brand appears to be. 

What are the reasons for consumers to buy specific brands? How can we tell whether a TV commercial will be effective or not? And what is the best way to set up a store? Those are questions central to the field of neuromarketing. But what is and what isn’t neuromarketing? Is it all about research? Or is it also about applying insights from theory into practice? And what does psychology have to do with it?

These questions are exactly why we have written this blog. In this blog you will get a clear overview of everything around neuromarketing. From the research methods to our favorite insights.