Mustafa Ahsan’s blog post on Neuromarketing forced me to consider a completely different approach to marketing that has added new depth to my understanding. It is both fascinating and terrifying that technology has advanced enough to be used to manipulate the human mind. Mastering Neuromarketing technology is of course a marketer’s dream, but may have serious ethical and social long-term consequences.

In our marketing lecture we discussed the extreme difficulty marketers face when trying to reach their consumers and fight for their attention. A.K. Pradeep, CEO of NeuroFocus asserts that, “If pitches are to succeed, they need to reach the subconscious level of the brain, the place where consumers develop initial interest in products, inclinations to buy them and brand loyalty”. Measuring brain waves and thus concluding the stimuli for subconscious activity achieves this.

Google, Disney, CBS and even some political campaigns have utilized Neuromarketing in order to tap into the public’s brain. Consumer advocates are rightly calling Neuromarketing, ““brandwashing” – an amalgam of branding and brainwashing”. The probing of our subconscious brain patterns may be used to influence consumer behavior without our consent.

With the continual research and development Neuromarketing may be used as a tool to influence our decisions about much larger, more pertinent issues as Dr Pradeep explains, “If I persuaded you to choose Toothpaste A or Toothpaste B, you haven’t really lost much, but if I persuaded you to choose President A or President B, the consequences could be much more profound”.

However, the technique has yet to prove that brain-pattern responses to marketing associate with purchasing behavior. Although with the consistently rapid growth of technology it may not be long until marketers are able to hear “the whispers of the brain”.

Citation:

Ahsan, Mustafa. “Neuromarketing.” (2012): n. pag. Web. 6 Oct. 2012. https://blogs.ubc.ca/mustafaahsan/.

Singer, Natasha. “Making Ads That Whisper to the Brain.” The New York Times. N.p., 13 Nov. 2010. Web. 6 Oct. 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/business/14stream.html?_r=0.