Marketing goes neural:
But you can depend on the brain, he said, maintaining that's why
neuromarketing, or the study of how the brain responds to marketing
stimuli, is here to stay.
Mr. Lindstrom said one of the most surprising findings of the
study involved warning labels placed on cigarette packs. When project
researchers asked test subjects if the warning labels worked, most said
"yes." These were the subjects' conscious answers. But their
subconscious answers told a different story. When researchers repeated
the same question and flashed images of the labels while subjects
underwent an fMRI, the images activated "craving spots" in the brain,
indicating that the warnings made the smokers want to smoke more, not
less.
In a different study, researchers found that anti-smoking ads had the same counterintuitive effect.