Why are you interested in neuromarketing?

I became intrigued with neuromarketing after hearing an introduction to Emsense and neuroscience in 2010. It was my first glimpse into the possibilities of using neuromarketing techniques for research and I was keen to find out more and do a live study one day. I was lucky enough to do 7 large scale neuromarketing studies whilst working at Tesco and leading their shopper insights. I was impressed with the quality and integrity of the results so my interest has since grown. I think I like the fact that it is scientific and offers a potentially definitive way to test hypotheses that are otherwise impossible to answer. 

How does your company view Neuro?

I’m new to Butlin’s – I’ve been here 3 months and there is no current viewpoint on neuro. However, I’ve started to talk about possibilities and I’ve had positive encouragement from colleagues. I will be sharing what I learnt at the NMWF in Rome and I think this will spark more interest.

What would be your advice for companies that want to start using Neuro?

I would advise careful assessment of vendors – see if you can get references from other brand-owners and read any academic papers that they have had published. Find out how many live studies they have done. I took a risk in the past but it turned out very well. Choose an initial study that you can afford to take a risk on and validate the results. Gradually your internal stakeholders will have more confidence in the outputs.

What are your doubts/questions?

I would question neuromarketing vendors who are selling GSR and implicit testing to be valid results on their own. I don’t think they are reliable on their own. Certainly with implicit testing I’ve seen that it offers up different results to EEGs. If possible I would recommend going with an EEG option if you can afford it.

What did you gain from attending the NMWF?

I learnt new things and I got an up to date understanding of how the sector is developing and the now proliferation of new vendors in the field – before there were so few!

The themes of validation and reliability were important – I found that working with vendors could be like a ‘black box’ in which you have no idea how data is being treated and whether best practice is being followed. Personally, I would rather see the industry create best practice guidelines rather than over-regulation, which could stifle creativity.

Mobile advertising was another key theme at this conference – very interesting presentations with similar results coming out of them. However, I would challenge the vendors that we already know some of the conclusions (grab them early, strong logo) without doing neuromarketing – ‘so what?’ is the cliché. Neuromarketing should try and draw conclusion that we can’t get to with more traditional methods.

But despite my minor criticism above, I was extremely impressed by the high standard of all the presentations and all the speakers and it definitely renewed my enthusiasm for neuromarketing techniques.