FMRI scans capture unconscious reactions

But what does that "better measurement" really tell you? Are we more likely to buy things to which we have these strong unconscious reactions than things we profess to be attracted to? At this point, no one is sure. "I don't think there is ironclad proof that you will act on what we see in the brain scans," says McPartlin. "The hypothesis is that if I can get a truer and more accurate reading of my customers' opinions, I'll know better whether they will buy it. It seems to make sense." Pilot tests are underway to do things like correlate how much people say they like a snack food package or a TV commercial with how active their brain scans look. It's all rather murky right now. And researchers are having a tough time nailing down what personality traits or other factors might unite the groups of people who respond very strongly to particular stimuli.

	Critics say some advertising promotes unhealthy habits and contributes to the obesity epidemic

Some critics don't like the sound of all this talk about seeing inside brains to our true preferences. They worry that marketers will gain too much power over us — citing the so-called "marketing-related disease" of obesity and all the health problems that accompany it. They worry about political propaganda that could speak directly to our hidden minds in ways of which we might not even be conscious. They paint ominous pictures of manipulated consumers and voters in an Orwellian future. Brain researchers respond that these concerns are more science fiction than reality; the scans are narrowing in on people's natural reactions, not implanting drives or desires. And their level of resolution is far too crude to read specific thoughts or urges at particular moments; the scans can only offer a broad understanding of a reaction to one object in comparison to another.

There may be a protective aspect to the brain scan/product studies as well. As Dr. Read Montague, a neuroscientist at Baylor College of Medicine, puts it, "The question is, isn't this research going to give slickster, unctuous marketers more power to make us buy more crap we don't want? But it's the opposite." Montague argues that currently we do not understand the covert ways that advertising works on us. By providing more knowledge of how our brains react to certain kinds of images, stories and ads, he believes that these studies empower consumers. If we discover that certain ways of delivering a message bias people in its favor, consumers can presumably guard themselves against those methods. And there are implications for minors too. "We suspect that marketing to children is unfair," says Montague. "Somehow children aren't quite culpable, aren't quite independent enough agents to be able to make what we consider to be rational choices in what they eat or don't eat, for example." But why exactly is that, what is happening — or not happening — in their brains? We don't understand yet what changes between when a child is 8 and when he turns 18 — and Montague says we won't unless we take a close look at their brains. In Anette Asp's native Sweden, advertising to children is illegal; greater understanding of children's susceptibility could lead to restrictions here.

Children seem to be especially influenced by advertising and what they watch on TV

Neuromarketers use brain science to "read the minds" of their subjects; then they use the information they glean to refine their products and ads into more attractive forms that they hope will help sales skyrocket. "Companies try to make products that appeal to the people who buy them," says marketing expert McPartlin. "That's a time-honored tradition in our capitalist society, nothing strange or unique about that." It's the addition of cutting-edge brain science to the mix that makes this a most modern type of marketing.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
3 pages: | 1 | 2 | 3 |