Neuromarketers Pick the Brains of Consumers 166
Pickens points out a story at The Guardian about the development of neuromarketing, the method by which advertisers track signals inside the brain to roughly extrapolate how a consumer reacts to products and advertisements. We've discussed this technique in the past, but now consulting firms are appearing who have begun to use this research to increase the effectiveness of their marketing practices. The author also notes a paper which elaborates on the scientific details (PDF).
"At McLean Hospital, a prestigious psychiatric institution run by Harvard University, an advertising agency recently sponsored an experiment in which the brains of half-a-dozen young whiskey drinkers were scanned. The goal, according to a report in Business Week, was 'to gauge the emotional power of various images, including college kids drinking cocktails on spring break, twentysomethings with flasks around a campfire, and older guys at a swanky bar'. The results were used to fine-tune an ad campaign for the maker of Jack Daniels."
It probably isn't illegal now ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:It probably isn't illegal now ... (Score:5, Insightful)
You said it perfectly right here: "marketers are merely helping you fulfill this need by pushing past other products' attempts to get you to purchase them."
This is the crux of the problem, because it belies a conceit that marketers have: that their product is a better choice than all competitors for their entire target group. This is unspeakably arrogant for starters, and unbelievably annoying when, naturally, every marketer believes this about their product, so you get 100 products all arrogantly claiming to be the right choice for me and in all likelihood drowning out the one choice that is in fact right for me, which in my case is almost never the one with the biggest pockets.
Re: (Score:2)
What makes you think marketers fall for their own lies?
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Their objective _should_ be to 'open your eyes' and allow you to see that you need their product rather than use psychological techniques to alter your needs so that you want their product - (not so) subtle difference.
I see nothing remotely illegal or unethical about this.
It's a shame you don't see a problem; Luckily for me, I do.
The marketing for the truly worthy products will have us walk past other products to buy the one true pr
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If marketing did not exist, you would walk into a store and purchase a random item off of the shelf (remember, no brand names, no fancy packaging!). In which case do you think you would find the better product?
Wow, you believe that? I buy things that looks like they have ingredients that I like. Choosing a tin of soup for example is pretty easy just based on the writing on the tin. Of course I know that Heinz make good tinned products so I'm happy to buy them, but I also buy supermarket's own branded stuff too (noodles for 8p, yes please!). Your assertion that brand names and fancy packaging automatically make something a 'better product' for consumption is ludicrous.. the information that 'red bull gives you wi
Needs vs. wants... (Score:2)
Now, "If I want to live, I need water" is true. But just "I need water" isn't.
Being pedantic aside, the problem with marketing is that it can (and does) blur the line between information and fraud. If you explicity stated, "Buy Alco brand Q-tips, and attractive women (or men) will sleep with you!", you would be committing fraud. (Well, if anyone actually believed you, and it wasn't obvious to a reasonable observer that you were being face
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If marketing did not exist, you would walk into a store and purchase a random item off of the shelf (remember, no brand names, no fancy packaging!). In which case do you think you would find the better product? That where they are indistinguishable and you select at random, or that which you are provided with information to make a better decision?
BZZZT! Wrong! In the absence of brand names, fancy packaging, etc, I would have a far easier time discovering what the true relative merits of the various products are, because the many things that you put there to induce a false distinction would be gone. In other words, the signal to noise ratio would be much much higher. Marketing causes people to purchase inferior products more often than not!
Furthermore, remove the fancy packaging, the screaming flashing ads, the brand name, etc, and you can red
Re: (Score:2)
The products you reference failed because their competitors had better marketing, which clearly would not be the case in a world where marketing did not exist.
Furthermore, you (anecdotally) support exactly my point! "Marketing causes people to purchase inferior products more often than not."
Re:It probably isn't illegal now ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Thats the point, the need they exploit has nothing to do with the product they sell. Budweiser doesn't make me more popular with the ladies, nor the life of the party (unless the lady is a urinal, and the party is the hopping mens room culture). Car X doesn't make me a sexy, rich, race car driver. Nikes and Gatorade don't make me any less of a nonathletic geek. And the last time I drank a liquor that was advertised I didn't get suave, unless suave really means rowdy, sweaty, and hitting on fat chicks.
Advertising usually goes for cheap psychological gimmicks, rather than actually explaining why Pepsi is better than Coke, or telling me why a crappy plastic mop is better than the one I own.
In short, they lie. Advertising is just manipulation, and I, for one, do not like to be manipulated. If advertising actually told me WHY I need the product, I might be convinced, giving a genuine need.
Also I think there is a backlash because it is EVERYWHERE. You can't escape it, EVER. Every bus (school, or public), every show, every game, every webpage, the sky, the roads, etc... all deluge us constantly with the same cheap psychological gimmicks. They are tacky, ugly, and distractive (the latter being the goal).
They also lead to a superficial culture, since people actually buy into them. I once knew a girl who had a Nike "swoosh" tattooed on her arm, and a Calvin pissing on a Chevy logo on her truck. I asked her why. She told me that she agreed with what Nike stood for (crappy over-priced tennis shoes mad in asian sweatshops?), and that anyone who didn't like Ford was a pussy. We are bombarded with these stupid images so much that they HAVE TO influence our psychology, self, and culture. Its another step away from reality. Branding isn't real.
Re: (Score:2)
Not disagreeing. When I buy mother boards I generally always buy ASUS, when I get video cards its always NVIDIA, and up until recently these computers always had AMD processors. This was because of familiarity and experience, I used them for y
Re:It probably isn't illegal now ... (Score:5, Insightful)
In my days, the objective of marketing was to boost profits, and the ultimate wet dream was to find a means to make people addicted.
CC.
Yes, I think marketers are evil. (Score:2)
Your life's work is worse than a waste of time. You could be doing something useful, providing actual value, helping make people's lives better. But despite the lies you tell yourself, you are not.
You are engaged in mind control. You know full well that 'free will' is bullshit. Your
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I only think marketers are evil as it is because of them that I'm bombarded with innumerable messages I'm not in the least interested in.
If you want me to buy a product, make a good product.
Don't try to show me how people are having fun, having sex or having cake; I'm not interested in pretty little stories. I know you lie, or at least consciously break the Gricean maxims, hoping no-one would notice.
About the only thing conventional marketing can make me do is decide not to buy the advertised product. An
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Advertising, "Check out our new car; you'll love it," is fine with me, but when the advertising starts using techniques that can rewrite the brain, then it's crossed the line. (That's why subliminal advertising with 1 frame "buy me" or "you are sexy" images that sink directly into the subconscious part of the brain have been banned.)
Go ahead and market your wares.
But don't use brainwash techniques. That's as bad as hacking into somebody's computer & changing their personal data.
And here is what you are missing. (Score:4, Insightful)
>Don't try to show me how people are having fun, having sex or having cake;
>I'm not interested in pretty little stories. I know you lie, or at least
>consciously break the Gricean maxims, hoping no-one would notice.
Here's the rub, though: Marketing research has virtually
It's easy to get up on the high horse on the Internet and say, "I'm too bright to fall for all that marketing crap.", but, as the article shows, there is a ton of research that goes into finding out what marketing _works_.
Re: (Score:2)
As I said in a previous post, that's why subliminal 1-frame images that say "buy me" or "this will make you sexy" have been banned.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
That's right.
Subliminal (kill) messages (your) are (parents) just (then) an (kill) urban (yourself) legend.
Re: (Score:2)
Here's the rub, though: Marketing research has virtually /proven/ that all the thing you claim won't get you to buy a product _DO_ get people to buy products.
It's easy to get up on the high horse on the Internet and say, "I'm too bright to fall for all that marketing crap.", but, as the article shows, there is a ton of research that goes into finding out what marketing _works_.
Yeah, whatever.
Of course some marketing works; some even works on most people.
I, for one, am fed up with slogans and scenes. If it means anything, I'm a linguist — I can't stop analyzing these things.
For instance, I only use a prepaid mobile phone. For the past month or three, my service provider has been airing some ads about some new tariffs. The ads themselves I find fairly amusing, though with their frequency, they are just as annoying as all the others. However, today I got to check those ta
Re: (Score:2)
"Helping to fulfill already present desires" is only one part of the story.
To link and (probably subvert) a "I need social acceptance" desire with, for instance, consuming alcoholic beverages is in my opinion something different altogether.
That said I'm with you that you are filling a niche that is, at least indirectly, wanted. So I'm not trying to bash you for it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Anyways, your answer is on the nugget. Seriously suggesting that someone can 'opt out' of modern advertising can only be advocating unibomber-type lifestyles.
Re:It probably isn't illegal now ... (Score:5, Insightful)
No skin off my back... I haven't actually paid attention to a commercial for years, and I only read print ads that are in scientific and tech related publications.
While on the subject, I have often thought it would be nice if ads were filled with enough technical data about a product to perform a comparative evaluation against similar product ads. I doubt that will ever happen, though.
Re: (Score:1, Funny)
Re:It probably isn't illegal now ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Interesting. I'm sure the marketers are pleased. The less conscious you are of their message, the less capable you are of resisting it.
Re: (Score:2)
I keep a book by the sofa that I read every time a commercial comes on. Often I walk out of the room and go pet my cat, or answer an email when a commercial break comes on. Often my roommate comments on a commercial that was just on, and I have no clue what they are talking about. 30 years of them have rather dulled the novelty, and
Scary when applied to politics (Score:2)
I find this sort of methodology quite disturbing when I imagine it used in political campaigns. In fact, I suspect it is already being used.
Re: (Score:2)
Then you've missed a lot of entertainment, most of the time the ads during the Super Bowl are better than the game.
If you're so against advertisement why do you read them... *gasp* because they are about products you're interested in. Just because your interests differ from the masses and mainstream advertising doesn't appeal to you, don't try t
Re: (Score:2)
IIRC, a research showed that people spend so much on marketing because everybody else is doing it.
Ads don't have that much of an effect anymore, but if you stopped advertising, you might disappear.
Most of the advertising money is therefore spent on keeping the status quo — seems a waste of resources to me.
Why does this not have the LOOKER tag (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Who do you want to scan your brain? The government can make things that people are only/primarily coerced into doing (prostitution, brain-scanning) illegal to help those people, even at the cost of some people's rights. For instance, you will never be able to verify your vote, as then someone who coerced you would be able to do so as well.
Let me put it another way, what happens when every IT job starts with a brainscan,
Similar to Interface (Score:5, Insightful)
In the book the people backing the lead character's bid for the presidency have a virtual "focus group" of people across the nation that watch his speeches. They are able to make adjustments to the speeches in real time by monitoring the reactions of the focus group's vitals.
I, for one, think that truth is not only stranger than fiction, but quickly becoming creepier as well.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1)
Good point about it getting creepier as well!
Re: (Score:2)
Seems like cheating doesn't it? I don't see how it could ever be ruled illegal, unless you are monitoring viewers brainwaves when they haven't consented to it.
The only way around it is to educate the public on how to tell when they are being manipulated by this sort of marketing technique, eg the phrases and other tricks that are used to trick your brain into believing or wanting something which you otherwi
DENIED (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
They will start looking out the window for flying pigs.
Banks use it (Score:3, Interesting)
Seems to be working...
why not skip the bullshit (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:why not skip the bullshit (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:1)
In this case, the goggles actually do something!
As long as you leave before you sober up... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
...and just employ hypnotists to force people to buy your crappy products. God forbid that a product would be sold on its genuine merits. Advertising really is one of the nastiest traits of "capitalism" (if you can call it that at this point)
Remember - before you bitch too much about capitalism - that complaining about people subtly influencing your choice means that you have a choice. Sure it's nasty,sleazy, distastful, etc, but it is an inevitable side effect of you having a large amount of freedom about how you live your life and them having free speech.
Compare it to the other economic/political structures where one or both freedoms are missing.
Re: (Score:2)
Compare it to the other economic/political structures where one or both freedoms are missing.
They are the same. In both cases you have a social system which encourages predatory behavior towards its own members, something which tends not to be a great strategy if you want long-term stability. As a matter of fact, the other economic/political structures you refer to aren't faring too well right now, but this does not mean capitalism works well, only that it takes longer since exploiting it is more compl
Re: (Score:2)
If a sufficient proportion of people do this, and teach their children, manipulative sales/marketing techniques will decline accordingly.
Actually, manipulative sales/marketing techniques will become even more subtle and deviously manipulative because of the increased selective pressure.
The only way we'd get rid of them is the "take all your antibiotics" solution -- if a sizeable-enough proportion of the population ignored them so effectively that advertising cost more than it gained in sales, so that any advertising at all was a profit-losing proposition. I find the chances of this slim.
Re: (Score:2)
The "Neuromarketers" Said (Score:2, Funny)
Cue the chorus... (Score:5, Insightful)
More than to brainwash us to buy individual products, the main work that advertising performs is to condition our basic assumptions about how we as individuals relate to other individuals and objects. Almost all ads say similar things to us; things like that freedom can be reduced to that of the marketplace, that our individuality is defined by our consumption choices, that we are always, always lacking *something* in ourselves but that happiness and completeness are only a purchase away...
And no, I'm not trying to deny the influence our marketing-saturated world has had on *me*. I just resent it, and the marketeers who helped create such a system.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Try this. I make my own vodka. I don't sell it (A, great flavor, B, uncle scam would assault me with the full weight of its bureaucratic thugs... thus, I withhold the goodies for my own consumption.)
I'll give free advice. If you spice vodka and mix it with various fruit juices (or plain water) it becomes rum. Depending on the mixtures, pure vodka can become pretty much any other drink. Just get some nice wooden barrels, proper filtration techniques and materials and distill away.
Re: (Score:2)
Stop bitching about marketing
Enough with the nonsense. Unsolicited marketing is stealing ever more of the time of our lives and the time of our life is the most precious thing we have.
Modern unsolicited mass marketers are scum. It's no accident that marketers rate very low in respect surveys. Most unsolicited marketers should be in jail for fraud - almost all ad's on hot media like network TV are fraudulent, not to mention the fact that puerile consumerism crowds out much more important concerns like
Re: (Score:2)
All things on TV are fraudulent, people knew this under communism. How come so much better people like western intellectuals actually watch TV? Aren't you people supposed to have side stepped outright dictatorship?
not to mention the fact that puerile consumerism crowds out much more important concerns like intelligent government or responsible parenting
Government of the few fallible mortals over the many fallible mortals, regardless of how often t
Typo... (Score:2)
Typo copy and pasting. Should read as follows:
Why don't you go outside, go for a swim, go get laid, or teach your kids something,
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Recursive? (Score:1)
Or is this just a really good argument to dismiss marketing generally as pseudo-science?
Re: (Score:2)
This whole tinfoil hat discussion is way overboard. This is just a high tech version of a focus group study, which is something advertisers have been doing for ages. So long as they are only measuring brain activity of volunteer subjects instead of their actual customers, they can do whatever the fuck they want.
When does it stop being everyday spruking... (Score:2, Insightful)
Here I guess.
Of course the thought of some trailer-tr@sh soaking up the latest food-o-matic-slicer-dicer-3001 suggests we're way past that point. However, if even educated people are enticed, then that might be the sign that it is more manipulation that advertising, and it shouldn't be allowed.
Actually I guess that even being edumacated hasn't been less-and-less protection in the past few decades...but I wouldn't bet
This is creepy, but what's really new here? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, marketers using technology to quite literally get inside your head is a very creepy prospect. But marketers have been using everything at their disposal to get into your head since forever. How is this different?
Personally I find the fact that there's a multi-trillion dollar industry working full time in an effort to manipulate my conscious and subconscious mind into believing that corporation X is my friend and that I desperately need they're crap in order to be a worthwhile individual already is creepy enough.
The fact that this industry's influence is so pervasive they can subject each of us to thousands of hours of their propaganda before we're even old enough to think makes that doubly so. There is good research showing that more 4 year olds now recognise the mcdonalds logo that most common animals or shapes.
I also particularly love this
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
The fact that somebody (Jack Daniels) actually found a way to benefit from it, good for them. The fact that Jack Daniels feels the need to do this makes me laugh.
What most of you don't realize is that the audience JD is targeting would have already decided they were going to somehow acquire liquor and drink it. JD, to my knowledge just n
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Your over-simplification of the industry being solely focused on _manipulation_ shows your fears are more grounded in Orwellian fantasy than reality.
There's no denying advertisers are pushers pure and simple. You underestimate the tacit symbiosis that exists in certain consumer segments and the respective products at hand though.
Are there ethics in this profession? Not especially, but the problem is that the modern system of content delivery is fi
that is so not right (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
Irony is... he had a "recipe for freedom"... went something like this:
"How to be free, kick in your TeeVee brew your own beer, kill your own meat, build your own cabin, and piss off the front porch whenever you damn feel like it. That is how to be free."
I feel damn disappointed only that I forgot the guy's name. Good philosophy. If you can't do it yourself, then WTF are you bitching about? I was like this too, some time ago.
20 minutes (Score:2)
Obligatory Futurama Reference..... (Score:3, Funny)
Wow. I thought that level of unleashed marketing was only good for cartoon humor.
As we all know... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
read it (Score:2)
One day in the office (Score:3, Funny)
Marketing Dept "BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAINS"
[Office worker quickly shuts door scratches head then opens it again]
Marketing Dept BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAINS WE WANT MORE BRAAAAAINS"
[Office worked shakes head and quickly heads down the hall.]
Focus groups wil now be even weirder (Score:2)
When will the ad agencies realize they are marketing to the outliers at the low end of the intellectual, and therefore the socioeconomic, spectrum? Or will Adwords
Re: (Score:2)
pitched in favor of the lower part of the distribution that ensures the average IQ is 100
IQ scores are designed (and adjusted over the years) to fit a normal distribution, such that 100 is the mean.
Also, advertisements (especially those for booze) tend to appeal to our basic most needs (see either Maslow or Freud).You may be less governed by appeals to these needs than someone less intelligent due to your reasoning power; however, appealing to these basic needs is still probably an ad company's best chance at overriding or modifying rational thought. Given this, people of low intelligence may
Re: (Score:2)
Your other point is reinforcing mine: that the reason the only thing on TV is pabulum tailored to our base instincts is that that is all the ad agencies measure.
Re: (Score:2)
You think someone with an IQ of 100 is scary? Half of the people are even dumber than that.
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps I'm missing something... (Score:2)
Who's marketing to whom?? (Score:4, Insightful)
The neuromarketers dazzle the advertisers with high tech research tools and high-concept pseudoscience and charge a lot of money for the privlidge. Quite a scam.
What upsets me is that the waiting lists for MRI scans for legitiment medical uses can be weeks or even months long (in Canada at least), while these expensive machines, and the scarce qualified persons that operate them, are tied up for completely "frivilous", and likely totally useless purposes.
Re: (Score:2)
What upsets me is that the waiting lists for MRI scans for legitiment medical uses can be weeks or even months long (in Canada at least), while these expensive machines, and the scarce qualified persons that operate them, are tied up for completely "frivilous", and likely totally useless purposes.
In the US, there is little to no waiting for an MRI scan, If one MRI lab is busy, call the one next door (ok, that is slight exageration). Some of the clients of marketers are MRI labs. I regularly hear/see ads from one MRI lab or another telling me why I should get my MRI done by them rather than the other guy. I guess that is just one more example of how much better the Canadian health system is over the US health system.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know how bad you can feel about MRI scanners getting tied up for advertising "research." It's really just money, and MRI scanners are way at the bottom of the list of things waste
That's fine... (Score:2)
Hype alert (Score:4, Insightful)
The article then jumps from these admittedly interesting results to start musing about 'what if "they" could read or even influence your mind as you walk into the shop' - which is of course utter nonsense. As things stand now you still require expensive machinery - you cannot 'scan' people's thought as they pass, and it is not likely that it will ever be possible to pick out individuals in a crowd anyway; and you cannot subject people to strong magnetic fields etc on a daily basis, it is simply too bad for their health. Put on top of that the fact that our actual thoughts are not something that can be easily interpreted from the electrical state of your brain - even if one could work out a precise rule book that would allow us to read the thoughts of one person, there is no guarantee that the same rules would work for somebody else. Each person has a unique brain, which is why they have different taste, reach different conclusions from the same facts and behave in different ways. What you can do is see some of the basic ingredients of our state of mind - how much anxiety, elation, sexual arousal, hunger etc - but one can't really tell what decisions a person will make, at least not in much detail. The complexity in doing this is as great as or even greater than predicting the weather.
So where does this leave things? The advertising agency now believes they can design better marketing campaigns because they have used 'scientific data'; but the fact is that all they can hope for is to strike a chord with an average of people. This doesn't really change a thing - it is not difficult to predict average behaviour, but it is next to impossible to predict what an individual will do. As far as I can see, this is just an advert: an advert for the agency.
Neuromarketing? (Score:2)
Just why should this be legal?
(If you want to be picky about it, it's more like privilege escalation than rooting.. but I'm strai
Re: (Score:2)
I tend to worry more about the actual effect than about the legality - but maybe I shouldn't. Anyway, I think the metaphor is useful, exploits are being found and used all the time, and we need patches. Not necessary legal patches, education patches.
Sometimes Slashdot is pathetic... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I find pre-movie full motion (non-trailer) advertising offensive considering the price of a movie ticket. I usually send the company an email indicating that their advertising will result in me avoiding their product(s) for a long time.
No clue if it works, but it might give them something to think about when they go to renew their advertising contracts.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think anyone is advocated making whiskey ads illegal. What people want is for the brain-scanning to be made illegal. Because, otherwise, it could become as unbiquitous as drug testing in employment. It could be used as a justification to preemptively lock people up. There simply are dangers in allowing it to be used.
Re: (Score:2)
"Neuromarketers Pick the Brains of Consumers" (Score:2)
A toast to Bill Hicks (Score:2)
By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself.
No, no, no it's just a little thought. I'm just trying to plant seeds. Maybe one day, they'll take root - I don't know. You try, you do what you can.
Kill yourself.
Seriously though, if you are, do.
Aaah, no really, there's no rationalisation for what you do and you are Satan's little helpers.
Okay - kill yourself - seriously. You are the ruiner of all things good, seriously. No this is not a joke, you're going, "there's going to be a joke coming," there's no fucking joke coming.
You are Satan's spawn filling the world with bile and garbage. You are fucked and you are fucking us. Kill yourself. It's the only way to save your fucking soul, kill yourself.
Planting seeds. I know all the marketing people are going, "he's doing a joke... there's no joke here whatsoever. Suck a tail-pipe, fucking hang yourself, borrow a gun from a Yank friend - I don't care how you do it. Rid the world of your evil fucking makinations. Machi... Whatever, you know what I mean.
new meaning (Score:2)
FUBAR(ain) (Score:2)
> up or go dark during the buying process, the
> researchers
can't possible determine whether the circuits involved are firing because they're working or because they're firing randomly in the absence of a function to perform, or whether the "lighting up" is excitatory or inhibitory. For that matter, without a simultaneous test of neural activity, all an fMRI can tell you is that blood is concentrating in these areas for reasons that may have nothing t
I'm shocked slashdot... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
gauge the emotional power of various images
Every now and then a goatse comes along and offers a true LOL. This has been one of those times.
I don't goatse (if I ever WERE to post malicious links they'd be the FBI's childporn honeypot link [slashdot.org] (that link is to the story, not the honeypot itself), so thank [PERSONALYDIETYCHOICE] I don't post malicious links, right?) but if I did, I would have been a bit more dramatic, like:
BEHOLD the emotional power of various images
just to highlight the emotional shock that image bombardment can really have on an indivi