Are you involved in marketing?

The following is a fictional ad

• Are you involved in marketing?
• Would you like to increase revenue & grow profitability?
• Would you like to discover better ways to understand customers?

Then you'll benefit from attending "Breakthrough Marketing" - this year's theme is "Inside the Mind of a Customer"

Everyone attending will be taken on a fascinating journey where they will discover:

• The six ways to better understand customers
  
• What leading researchers have learned about buying patterns
  
• How to benefit from the human desire to form social groups
  

Of course this is a fictional ad for the cancelled nueromarketing conference. The reason that it was cancelled? Evolability. This is too different. What mass-market appeal does this conference have for a bunch of people tasked with operational/tactical jobs. I doubt most marketing managers are held accountable today for sales 3-5 years from now. But I'm not a marketing manager, so maybe some people are tasked with that?

Rob (BusinessPundit) & Jennifer (Brand Mantra) both commented on this original post by Zack at Brain Waves about the neuromarketing conference being cancelled. Rob expressed that it was a shame that the conference was cancelled, Jennifer on the other hand commented that this stuff is pointless and could be dangerous. I was sort of surprised to read Jennifer's opinion on this - I mean, not that I know her or anything - but look at all the cool links she has and the current book she is reading is The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature. I'd love to hear her thoughts on this after she's done reading that book... I will agree with Jennifer about relationships and getting close to customers. And that is possible if your "offering" allows you to do so, but what about the messy world of CPG companies? They don't typically have access to the end consumer.

But I digress.

Neuromarketing, Neuroeconomics, Brain Imaging... all geeky terms, I'm sure those words scared a few people off who would have enjoyed the conference.

How do they help me build relationships? Sell products? Etc.?

"Brain imaging", which seemed to be the central theme to the comments on Jennifer's post, was only a portion of the conference. It appears that there was a lot of other good stuff that could be applied today. Why not sell it on that basis; the future of marketing that you can use today. Give people something to use today and an exclusive glimpse at what the future could hold... that is a winning combination. Perhaps had they taken a more nascent approach, like my fictional ad, more people would have signed up.

Notice the words I used in my ad versus the ones I didn't:

• Researchers, not scientists (researchers=good, scientists=geeky,deep,complex)
  
• Mind, not Brain or Neuro (marketers use the term 'mind'. Brain is science, marketing is about the mind)
  
• Breakthrough Marketing, not Neuromarketing (suggests something worth exploring, but not geeky - neuro might be above someone's head, no one wants to feel stupid)
  

Anyway, the reason for my interest is that I just completed reading Liars, Lovers, and Heroes: What the New Brain Science Reveals About How We Become Who We Are. It was a very good book that put a human face on a complex science. Thank you for the suggestion Mr BusinessPundit!

Comments

[fouroboros]

Couldn't agree more. From a knowledge standpoint, it seems many marketers curse the darkness and tighten their grip on tired analytics rather than open their minds to why people really buy. Granted, I can't see MRIs replacing man on the street interviews anytime soon. But until people who are charged with selling product acknowledge that they're really just throwing darts at a board when it comes to the emotional side of persuasion nothing's gonna help them dodge the old client adage "I know half of my advertising is wasted, I just don't know which half".

[Zack Lynch]

You are probably right about neuromarketing not taking off in corporations for quite a while. If one looks at history it is typically finance organizations that are the one on the cutting edge of leveraging new technologies. If this is the case then neurofinance (I know another neuro), but seriously, if a group of traders could forecast their emotions (ie understand how their emotions have influence previous decisions) and make 5% better (ie more profitable) decisions, you'd better believe Soros would be the first to jump on board.