Neuromarketing and Wine Pricing

The term neuromarketing generally refers to the use of brain scans using medical imaging equipment to develop marketing messages and advertising.  Basically, researchers hook people up to MRI machines and watch how their brains react to marketing pitches. 

Over the last decade MRI machines have gotten much smaller. This allows for much less intrusive scans.  People can now be scanned while sitting realtively comfortably in a chair.   This, coupled with lower costs, has created the opportunity for both academic researchers and marketing practioners to investigate neuromarketing. 

CNET has an article on a neuromarketing experiment done by researchers from CalTech and Stanford.  So does the London Times.  The research looked at the brain activity of research subjects as they drank wine.  They found as the price of the wine goes up, so the does the sensation of pleasantness.  Key quote:

"that the sensation of pleasantness that people experience when tasting wine is linked directly to its price. And that's true even when, unbeknownst to the test subjects, it's exactly the same Cabernet Sauvignon with a dramatically different price tag."

Other neuromarketing studies have also shown that price and image have a major impact on how consumers perceive a product.

Large corporations are starting to actively experiment with neuromarketing.  Expect to see many more neuromarketing studies over the next few years.

Comments

[Alex Bellinger]

I love your straight reporting of this story. But don't you think it's somewhat scary?

I'm a firm believer that every business should get into the mind of its customer, but for reasons of understanding i.e. to give them the product or service they want.

While you could argue that marketing has always been about influencing (sometimes subconsciously) the minds of potential customers, neuromarketing sounds like something out of Bladerunner.

I'm not sure I want my customers to be replicants ;)

Cheers

Alex

[Neuromarketing]

Don't worry, Alex, if it was possible to turn people into buying drones clever advertisers would have done so already. The fact is that people are different, and there's no magic buy button. On the plus side, neuromarketing tests may help businesses avoid wasting money on ads that simply don't perform.

Roger

[Steve]

I am worried about about the ethical issues around neuromarketing and I do find it a bit scarey.

Having said that, because of the intrusive nature of neuromarketing only volunteers can be used in their studies.

If they could do brain scans without your knowledge - that would be scarey.