Neuromarketing Definition: How Brands Read the Buyer's Brain
The word began in a 2002 lecture and now carries two meanings. What each means, and what brain measures can and cannot tell a brand.
Answer to the question
What is the neuromarketing definition?
The neuromarketing definition used here is the measurement of brain or body responses to products, brands and advertising, to inform a marketing decision. Ale Smidts is credited with the first academic definition in a 2002 address, a 2007 paper described it as brain imaging applied to market research, and a 2010 review found that definitions conflict.
Key takeaways
- Ale Smidts gave a 2002 inaugural address at Erasmus University Rotterdam that a university research institute credits with the first definition and first academic publication on neuromarketing.
- Hilke Plassmann and colleagues (2015) call the academic side consumer neuroscience and describe its first decade as foundational work on judgement and decision making, mostly published in neuroscience journals.
- A 2007 paper in the International Journal of Psychophysiology describes neuromarketing as brain imaging applied to market research and argues for a wider reading, beyond products and advertising.
- A 2010 review in the Harvard Review of Psychiatry reports that definitions of neuromarketing conflict, so the first question about any report is what was measured and for which decision.
- A 2014 study in Nature Communications found that viewers' brain responses to television were consistent across people and predicted a large sample's stated ratings.
The first academic [neuromarketing definition](https://thewhyweproject.com/articles/what-is-neuromarketing) arrived in a lecture hall, not a laboratory. Ale Smidts gave his inaugural address at Erasmus University Rotterdam in October 2002, under a Dutch title that translates as Looking into the Brain: On the Possibilities of Neuromarketing. The university's research institute for management places the birth of the field around that year and credits the address with the first definition and the first academic publication on neuromarketing. Since then the word has carried two meanings, and a usable neuromarketing definition has to say which one it intends.
Two names for one family of methods
The address was a shortened lecture given as Smidts took up a professorship in marketing research methodology, and it now sits in the university's inaugural address series. Its title promised an account of the possibilities of neuromarketing, which makes it a statement of intent as much as a definition.
The academic name is consumer neuroscience. Hilke Plassmann and colleagues, writing in 2015, describe the first decade of the field as a period of foundational work on the neural processes behind judgement and decision making, published mostly in neuroscience journals. They argue that the field now grows by carrying that basic science into marketing theory and practice. They set out five ways its methods can be applied, three fundamental challenges with possible solutions, and the ways the field can complement marketing research and practice.
Neuromarketing is the label that grew up around the applied side. A 2007 paper puts it as the application of brain imaging to market research, and notes that the practice had caused debate among neuroscientists. Its own proposal was wider. The authors argued that neuromarketing should reach beyond commercial studies of products and advertising to the marketing discipline as a whole, drawing on general neuroscience and neuroeconomics, and they offered a definition of it as a field of study.
A 2010 review from psychiatry looked at how the word was used in practice. It reports that definitions of neuromarketing conflict, that companies working under the label offer a range of technologies and that many employ academics. When a report leans on a neuromarketing definition of its own, the first question is what was measured and which decision the measurement was meant to inform.
| Name | Where it mostly appears | What it starts from |
|---|---|---|
| Consumer neuroscience | Academic journals, in the sense Plassmann and colleagues use | A question about judgement and decision making |
| Neuromarketing | Market research practice and public discussion | Applying brain imaging to market research |
| Working neuromarketing definition used here | Either setting | Measuring brain or body responses to products, brands and advertising, to inform a marketing decision |
What a scan cannot settle on its own
Reading a feeling off a brain scan takes two steps, and the second is the weaker. A published summary of a 2006 paper on reading mental processes from imaging data explains that inferring a mental process from the activity of a brain region is only as reliable as the region's selectivity, meaning how often it responds to the process of interest compared with how often it responds to other tasks. A region that lights up for many kinds of task cannot name one feeling. The step has a name, reverse inference, and it is the standard caution for any claim of the form that a region was active and so the buyer felt this.
Robert Sapolsky makes a related point from inside neuroscience. In Behave he lists neuromarketing among the neuro-prefixed fields that have multiplied, and he cautions that more elaborate neurobiology does not by itself make a verification more reliable, a caution that applies equally to old brain explanations of buying. A brain measure earns its place by what it adds to simpler ways of asking. That is also the question Plassmann and colleagues put to their own field when they ask how its methods can complement marketing research and practice.
A brain measure earns its place by what it adds to simpler ways of asking.
A recording shows that a brain or body responded to a stimulus, with timing and location. What the response means for a buyer's choice depends on the design around it: a comparison condition, other measures alongside and a decision that can be tested. A definition that names those pieces is describing a method.
Where the term earns its keep
The case for the method starts with timing. The 2007 paper noted that imaging lets researchers track when, where and how rapidly neural activity occurs, something marketing researchers had largely overlooked. A questionnaire asks after an event, and a recording runs during it. That difference in timing is the practical reason a team might add a brain or body measure to a study that would otherwise rely on questions alone. For a film, an advertisement or a page layout, that means a response can be followed second by second rather than summed up afterwards.
A 2014 study shows what this looks like at the scale of an audience. Viewers' brain responses to popular television content were highly consistent across people, and the degree of consistency predicted how much a large sample said they liked the shows or found them interesting. It predicted those ratings more accurately for the larger audience than for the people whose brain data were recorded. The ratings came from separate samples who were asked what they liked, so the study links how closely viewers' brain responses move together to how an audience rates content afterwards. It does not read any single viewer's mind.
Used this way, the evidence helps a team compare how an audience as a whole is likely to respond to a piece of content while it plays, and the separate question of what any one customer wants stays with other methods.
Common questions
What is the neuromarketing definition?
The neuromarketing definition used here is the measurement of brain or body responses to products, brands and advertising, to inform a marketing decision. A 2007 paper described it as brain imaging applied to market research, and a 2010 review found that definitions in circulation conflict.
Where did the word neuromarketing come from?
A university research institute places the birth of the field around 2002 and credits Ale Smidts, in an inaugural address at Erasmus University Rotterdam that year, with the first neuromarketing definition and the first academic publication on the field.
Is neuromarketing the same as consumer neuroscience?
They overlap. Consumer neuroscience is the academic name, used by Hilke Plassmann and colleagues for work on the neural processes behind judgement and decision making. Neuromarketing is the label for applying brain imaging to market research. A clear neuromarketing definition says which sense is meant.
What can neuromarketing tell a brand?
A 2014 study found that viewers' brain responses to television were consistent across people and predicted a large sample's stated ratings. Evidence of this kind supports judging audience response under any neuromarketing definition, and a scan alone does not name one buyer's feelings.
Sources
Sapolsky, R. M. (2017). Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst.
Smidts, A. (2002). Kijken in het brein: Over de mogelijkheden van neuromarketing. Inaugural address, Erasmus University Rotterdam, 25 October 2002. ERIM Inaugural Address Series. https://repub.eur.nl/pub/308/
Erasmus Research Institute of Management. The History of Neuromarketing and Neuroeconomics (project page). https://www.erim.eur.nl/neuroeconomics/projects/detail/2329-the-history-of-neuromarketing-and-neuroeconomics/
Lee, N., Broderick, A. J., & Chamberlain, L. (2007). 'What is neuromarketing? A discussion and agenda for future research.' International Journal of Psychophysiology, 63(2). doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2006.03.007. Read at the level of the abstract.
Fisher, C. E., Chin, L., & Klitzman, R. (2010). 'Defining neuromarketing: Practices and professional challenges.' Harvard Review of Psychiatry, 18(4). doi:10.3109/10673229.2010.496623. Read at the level of the abstract.
Plassmann, H., Venkatraman, V., Huettel, S. A., & Yoon, C. (2015). 'Consumer neuroscience: Applications, challenges, and possible solutions.' Journal of Marketing Research, 52(4). doi:10.1509/jmr.14.0048. Read at the level of the abstract.
Poldrack, R. A. (2006). 'Can cognitive processes be inferred from neuroimaging data?' Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10(2). doi:10.1016/j.tics.2005.12.004. Read at the level of a published summary of its argument.
Dmochowski, J. P., Bezdek, M. A., Abelson, B. P., Johnson, J. S., Schumacher, E. H., & Parra, L. C. (2014). 'Audience preferences are predicted by temporal reliability of neural processing.' Nature Communications, 5, 4567. doi:10.1038/ncomms5567. Read at the level of the abstract.