Neuromarketing is gathering steam in among the marketing folk. Is it yet another fuzzy buzzword? Possibly not.

 

“Neuromarketing seems to suggest we up our social media buying by 30%,” remarked the podgy horn-rimmed spectacled guy who was also the CMO of my previous organization. Being a finance man who can compose poetry in excel, branding was always fluff to me – a sort of shooting the breeze exercise for managers to print their own greenbacks, while us finance folk generated them. Show me one CMO sharing an after work beer with a CFO and I’ll show you pigs on the wing. 

 

As it turned out, I couldn’t have been more wrong. Neuromarketing is a very mathematical study of the brain’s responses to a campaign and the ensuing adjustment to match or exceed audience expectations, based on concrete feedback. The idea of being able to tweak campaigns (with celerity) makes for a very compelling evaluation of this theory. Make no mistake though – while this science may not require an EEG, it does require solid numerical and social proof! A good example can be that of GE or McDonald’s, both having “powerful logos” that clearly affect their branding strategy and eventually translate into numbers. A number of websites in today’s era focus heavily on customer testimonials. Let’s be honest here – wouldn’t you want to try out a cheap Airbnb hostel when traveling on a slim budget, with good reviews? Of course you would!

 

Let’s get tunnel through another buzzword – ubiquitous branding. A lot of firms indulge in this, and with success, to boot. Here again, as number of logo placements go up, customer loyalty seems to inflate and corporations adjust their branding accordingly. Headers, footers, emails, hoardings – you name it and you’ll find the logos. Just ask Nike!

 

I always imagined color to be an ally of a painter’s palette. Yet again, new age marketers made me feel like a fool with a painted face. Color, it seems elicits responses from the audience that are so explicit that one can “almost” quantify them. I never knew that the red-yellow combination makes one feel warm and happy, in that order.

 

Neuromarketing is very much a precise science – just as mathematical as company valuation. Da Vinci probably cracked this code ages ago. It’s time you take cognizance of it, else you’d be chasing the wolf-pack!