The role of neuroeconomics in advertisement: a systematic review
by Erin Wong
Category: Social Sciences
Abstract
The integration of neuroscience into decision-making research started in the mid-1970s and its goal was to gain insight into the hidden sub-conscious cognitive processes that occurred during decision-making. This study analyzes the effectiveness of neuromarketing techniques, comparing them with traditional methods in order to shine a light on the role neuroeconomics plays in the advertising industry. The databases used for searching were PubMed, JSTOR, DOAJ, and Nature Communications. Experimental studies on healthy adult populations with full cognitive function were included. All the papers were screened by one person. Papers were screened according to abstract and title first, and then full texts were further screened for eligibility and inclusion. 201 studies were screened describing studies that applied neuromarketing methods in advertising campaigns with subjects that were healthy. 66 articles made it through to full-text screening for eligibility and 24 were selected for quality checking. Four papers were subject to in-depth analysis, and the main neuromarketing techniques used were discovered to be eye-tracking, biometrics, EEG, and fMRI with all of them having many advantages over traditional methods. Neuromarketing techniques can explain the correlations between regions of the brain and the implicated cognitive processes with much greater detail and depth than traditional methods, with the usage of fMRI being the best predictor of advertising success. One limitation was the inclusion of too few articles for analysis, and future research could include companies modifying their ads in subtle ways using the existing knowledge to best target consumers.
The integration of neuroscience into decision-making research started in the mid-1970s and its goal was to gain insight into the hidden sub-conscious cognitive processes that occurred during decision-making. This study analyzes the effectiveness of neuromarketing techniques, comparing them with traditional methods in order to shine a light on the role neuroeconomics plays in the advertising industry. The databases used for searching were PubMed, JSTOR, DOAJ, and Nature Communications. Experimental studies on healthy adult populations with full cognitive function were included. All the papers were screened by one person. Papers were screened according to abstract and title first, and then full texts were further screened for eligibility and inclusion. 201 studies were screened describing studies that applied neuromarketing methods in advertising campaigns with subjects that were healthy. 66 articles made it through to full-text screening for eligibility and 24 were selected for quality checking. Four papers were subject to in-depth analysis, and the main neuromarketing techniques used were discovered to be eye-tracking, biometrics, EEG, and fMRI with all of them having many advantages over traditional methods. Neuromarketing techniques can explain the correlations between regions of the brain and the implicated cognitive processes with much greater detail and depth than traditional methods, with the usage of fMRI being the best predictor of advertising success. One limitation was the inclusion of too few articles for analysis, and future research could include companies modifying their ads in subtle ways using the existing knowledge to best target consumers.