• Brain Games and Conversations

    Posted on September 26th, 2011 by and currently 0 commenting.

    Whew. It feels like I haven’t written on here in a while, and it’s good to be back now that the FIRE Sessions are over.

    Today I have a quick post on an article I read in this month’s issue of Fast Company magazine (1). I’ll only focus on a few small details, but the the piece is written about “neuromarketing,” an emerging method or research in the business world.

    I’ll spare you the lengthy description, but the short story is that really smart people put a contraption on people’s heads (see below) and take “…instantaneous readings of EEG sensors…track[ing] electrical waves as they relate to emotion, memory, and attention from specific areas of the brain…” (1) Essentially, neuromarketers want to observe unadulterated neurological happenings before they have a chance to be influenced by other variables in your noodle – things like “cultural bias, differences in language and education, and memories.” (1) I promise, I’m getting to the point.

    There’s a debate going on as to the legitimacy of these new methods (some heavy duty brands are using them), but what really caught my attention was this quote in relation to more ‘traditional’ research methods, specifically, focus groups:

    It’s not statistically significant, so it’s risky to graft your findings onto the population at large. One or two blowhards may hijack an entire panel, and researchers can, without knowing it, influence participants. The world has changed, and yet so much market research is still conducted the same old way. (1)

    It reminded me of a talk I gave last year to a group of students who wanted me to answer the question, “How are you and your company, Brains on Fire, adjusting to the vast changes taking place in the marketing world today?”

    And my how the world is changing. Information travels at the speed of light, the level of connectivity possible today was literally only a figment of people’s imaginations only a few short decades ago, and yes, there have been amazing technological advances in what we can learn about what’s going on in the gray stuff behind our eyeballs.

    As complicated as those shifts and advances are, my answer to the students was simple: “We manage change by focusing on the one thing that hasn’t changed, and that’s people.”

    People still have conversations, and the most meaningful ones most often are face-to-face, which is probably why Alexis and the Insight team will continue to sit down and have with actual customers and employees of our clients. That’s not to say neuromarketing can’t be tremendously insightful – heck, I’d love to get my hands on one of those helmets and sit a few people down for testing :)

    It was a good reminder that there are an increasing number of amazing tools at our disposal, and an increased responsibility for us to learn to use them, but that tools will never fully replace sitting down with a customer and asking them how your company can make a positive difference in their life.

    ———

    Just for fun, what kinds of things would you research if you could run some EEG testing, and who would you test?

    • (1) You can read the entire Fast Company article on neuromarketing here. It’s pretty darn interesting.