Analysis of neurophysiological reactions to advertising stimuli by means of EEG and galvanic skin response measures.

Abstract

This article demonstrates how marketing may benefit from neurophysiology. The authors discuss a particular research case concerning the analysis of a skin care product advertisement. Pretests of 2 versions of this TV ad revealed that, although the versions were almost identical, each of them generated significantly different impact. Their influence was assessed using both cognitive measures (benefits and key benefits recall) and behavioral measures (shelf test). The only difference between these 2 versions of the ad was in a single scene that contained a particular gesture by a female model. Of note, the gesture appeared to enhance the effectiveness of the ad. The authors tested whether neurophysiological measures can capture differences in consumer reactions to slightly different marketing stimuli. Indeed, by using electroencephalography and electromyography and by monitoring skin conductance, the authors were able to register significant differences in neurophysiological reactions to an altered scene, even though the difference was not consciously seen. The authors believe that neurophysiological measures soon will be widely acknowledged and used as a complimentary method in classical marketing research.

Branding the brain: A critical review and outlook

“…Although there are strong correlations between frontal EEG asymmetry and personality traits, the degree to which the asymmetry changes from one moment to another is questionable. Some studies have applied this approach to measure moment-to-moment fluctuations in emotional responses to advertisements without accounting for autocorrelations in time or multiple statistical comparisons (Ohme, Reykowska, Wiener, & Choromanska, 2009). However, the validity of such approaches is unclear, as hemispheric asymmetry is also an index of working memory load (Habib, Nyberg, & Tulving, 2003;Tulving, Kapur, Craik, Moscovitch, & Houle, 1994).…”

The contribution of neuroscience to consumer research: A conceptual framework and empirical review

“…Specifically, the use of celebrities with perceived expertise was shown to significantly activate regions involved in memory formation within the temporal lobe including the hippocampus; these possibly superior memory effects appeared consistent with behavioural measures of product recognition (Klucharev et al, 2008). On a related question, a multi-method study highlighted the presence of significant differences in the psychophysiological responses to slightly differing TV advertising scenes, although the viewers could not consciously notice the difference (Ohme et al, 2009). If further confirmed, such results would appear consistent with the concept of subliminal advertising.…”

Eye-Blink Artifact Reduction Using 2-Step Nonnegative Matrix Factorization for Single-Channel Electroencephalographic Signals

“…Biological signal processing has been widely studied in various situations such as rehabilitation [1], [2], behavioral analysis [3], and neuromarketing [4]. In particular, electroencephalographic (EEG) signal processing has recently attracted attention since EEG signals contain a mixture of endogenous brain activities.…”