Neuromarketing in the Age of iPhones

Personal devices could help marketers peer deeper in our minds, but questions remain over credibility and ethics

A shopper wearing eye tracking glasses peruses cereal options. Neuromarketers claim that through eye tracking, brain scans, and other tests, they can gain insight into people’s subconscious reactions to marketing campaigns and products. Photo courtesy SMI Eye Tracking

Marketers are hoping to capitalize on biometric data that can reveal feelings we may not even know we have—or would rather not share.

The field of neuromarketing could be on the verge of a breakthrough with the latest smartphones and wearable tech. In the past, neuromarketers operated on the fringes of credibility, but that could change, along with the ethical issues the technology raises.

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Neuromarketing attempts to craft better marketing campaigns and products by measuring subconscious reactions.

That can involve conducting an electroencephalogram (EEG) or MRI brain scan on a test subject while exposing that person to a commercial or product, as was done in 2004 when volunteers took the Pepsi challenge inside a brain scanner. That test revealed how the brain responded differently once the drink was identified—neural evidence of brand recognition.

Neuromarketing is used by 10 percent of marketing buyers and accounts for 1 percent of global market research, according to a 2016 report by LCC, which predicts the market will double in five years.

We are already seeing the emergence of mobiles with in-built eye tracking and biometric measurement capability.

— Gemma Calvert, professor, Nanyang Business School