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March 03, 2005
Hindsight research
Posted by Jennifer Rice
Chroma notified me of a new PBS show that aired a few days ago called:
Marketing To Your Mind, a show in which good spirit Alan Alda's mind is scanned with magnetic imaging as he is presented with cool (iPod) vs. non-cool (Buicks) to look at while we get to see activity in his frontal lobe.
The article states:
That part of the brain is used to reflect on yourself and how you might be viewed by others — and it often lights up when subjects imagine themselves using the particular product on display. "I think that's an interesting result," Asp says. "You don't just buy a product for its own sake, isolated from the rest of your world. It's actually a very social act and we're showing the world who we are by buying these products." Consumers take a lot more into account when they decide to buy products than dry economic theories of utility and cost might suggest.
I wrote about neuromarketing last year on my own blog (here and here) in which I disagreed with the basic premise. I think the problem with most marketing research is that it's reactive instead of proactive.
If I'm in a focus group and you offer me a choice between a snake, a roach and a June bug, I'm quite likely to pick the snake. Not because I'm a huge fan of snakes, mind you... I just think it's better than the alternatives.
...There are plenty of ways to understand your customer and learn -- before you test -- that a cat is preferable to a snake.
Besides reactivity, my other issue is that... duh, isn't it obvious that iPod is cooler than a Buick? I don't know how much it costs to do MRIs on a bunch of customers, but there are a lot of equally effective ways to find this out at a fraction of the cost.
I'm not averse to new technology; there will probably be some interesting applications for neuromarketing, and it's helping us learn more about the brain. But I think it's more important to actually engage customers on the front end. The better you know your customers, the less need you will have for fancy gadgets to test stuff that you've already spent a lot of money to develop. Seems like people will try anything rather than just sitting down and having a conversation.
Comments (3)
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1. Constantinos on March 3, 2005 08:57 PM writes...
I completely agree that this is hindsight research. I always think of this kind of research as putting the cart before the horse.
What's amazing to me is that the scientists in the article actually seem surprised that the things we buy reflect not only who we are, but also how we would like others to perceive us. Of course buying certain products is a social act!
Does so much branding and marketing misfire because this basic human truth is overlooked?
Permalink to Comment2. jbr on March 4, 2005 12:29 AM writes...
uh, i don't think these researchers are really telling us anything noteworthy. everyone visually projects themselves when looking at buying an object. it doesn't mean a person likes/dislikes the object. it just means they are mentally trying it out or remembering some event associated with an item or reflecting on an association based on the shape/color or the object. hell, it could mean any number of things.
i hope this wasn't a government paid research team. i am pretty certain that we know buying reasons are driven by more "than dry economic theories of utility and cost might suggest". they would be better off developing rf sensors that detect chemical reactions in the body that are known to be a precursor to a buying decision. i guarantee that would be worthwhile research that many companies would love to have.
Permalink to Comment3. Bruce DeBoer on March 4, 2005 04:34 PM writes...
“We are so busy measuring public opinion that we forget we can mold it. We are so busy listening to statistics we forget we can create them.”
This Bill Bernbach quote still carries weight with me. Reactive tendencies get a bad rap so I don’t want this to be a put down of all those reactionary heroes out there, but I do have strong opinions regarding reactive marketing research and advertising.
Research is a great thing. Clearly, the more money we’re about to spend, the more I want to be sure it’s heading in the right direction. On the back end, I want to see how well I did; what was the impact of my campaign or other marketing decisions. I’ll read it, adjust, then go again.
We do research to find answers. An entrepreneur is one who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business – but none of us want to risk more than we must and these days we are more risk adverse. In my opinion, the more we search for the answer the more risk adverse we become. So when do we go with our gut?
I say, in business, do research to gain meaningful insight and leave the rest for post mortems. A good business leader needs a strong insightful gut – usually called vision. Without inspired vision, you end up ordering MRI’s to scan human test brains for how they react to our latest advertising. CRAZY!
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