What is Neuromarketing and how it can help your startup?

WRITTEN BY BOZHENA KLICHUK

While data-science and data-based decisions are a new normal for marketers all over the world, an even deeper understanding of the customer’s behavior based on scientific research is still a novice.

Have you ever wondered why you liked that song on a Sunday morning or picked potato chips in the red package, not the yellow one? Why do we do things we do? What makes us tick? It might be a coincidence, or an invisible power managing our choices whether it’s chips, a song, or a movie to pick for the night. Neuromarketing.

What is Neuromarketing and how it works?

According to Harward Business Review, Neuromarketing refers to the measurement of physiological and neural signals to gain insight into customers’ motivations, preferences, and decisions, which can help inform creative advertising, product development, pricing, and other marketing areas. Brain scanning, which measures neural activity, and physiological tracking, which measures eye movement and other proxies for that activity, are the most common methods of measurement.

In other words, it’s an application of neuroscience to marketing. The study of how the brain is influenced by marketing and consumerism.

Today brands cannot just predict future behavior but they can also model it by combining AI with neuroscience. It’s not only that technologies went further but that there is a reason to fix it. We have marketers on one side who want to create amazing experiences for us to fall in love with without creeping us out. On the other side, there are us, consumers who want to be charmed and flirt with the brands just not be creeped out. The ‘creeping out’ part is still out there on the billboards, TV and countless ads online. Neuromarketing aims to bridge the gap between marketers and consumers.

Meet Neurotrack – Ukrainian startup discovering the emotional and behavioral reaction of the target audience by tracking the conscious and unconscious reactions of the body.

Neurotrack was founded in 2019 by Vitaliy Miniaylo and Alexander Shvets. In April 2020 Vadym Kozhevny joined the team as CEO.   Kozhevniy and Miniaylo have been working together previously and had the matching experience and similar views on neuromarketing development plans.

Vitaliy Miniaylo and Vadym Kozhevny have crossed their paths while working together on developing unusual methods for Internet promotion, such as displaying videos to the YouTube trends. Kozhevniy was searching for ways to improve marketing practices and bring Europen experience and expertise to Ukraine.

Both Miniaylo and Kozhevniy had knowledge in marketing and data science and connections to large clients, suck as local e-betting companies, so that made it easier to start.

“I came up with a question of how effective marketing tools can be used to maximize the quality and efficiency of creatives. We did a little research and found out that there is such a thing as neuromarketing beyond the borders of our country. It has been utilized by almost every major company and university in some way or form,” said Miniaylo.  

Examples of neuromarketing include the use of images and videos with babies or puppies to have prolonged and more focused attention from customers and the use of red color is the most common color for the food industry. (Take a look at the McDonald’s or Burger King’s logos)

“There are so many ways to manipulate our brains. And all of it is collected into one science called neuromarketing”, said Miniaylo.

Kozhevniy and Miniaylo partnered with the scientists, who helped to shape the way startup worked and the services it provided.

Neurotrack has focused on the usage of two main technologies, such as:

• • Eye-tracking – the motion of the eye is measured with the help of a special device. It helps to create a heat map and subtract the blind sports. The direct and indirect goals of these actions are to increase sales with a certain number of visitors.
  • Electroencephalography is a device that helps to evaluate emotions. Each area of our brain is responsible for certain emotional expressions. And all of the emotions are being shown by the device while the person, who is wearing it, is shown specific visuals or videos. After the evaluations, with help of the same device, the emotions are classified and being worked with for marketing purposes.

    

How behavioral research is connected to marketing?  

Behavioral research and eye-tracking can make the process of advertising creative evaluation objective. That means, if earlier this process went through a certain number of managers, though they weren’t the target audience, now we can communicate directly with the audience. In other words, these devices simplify and clarify our daily work routine. Instead of wasting time on the team’s opinion, we spend it in a more productive way – by getting the direct opinion of the target audience.

Neuromarketing can be used anywhere. Each and every industry needs it. The highest demand for it has the entertainment industry. All of the movie trailers go through neuromarketing research. In case if somewhere in their process a negative reaction is caught, it is cut off and changed so that the viewers like it. That accordingly affects ticket sales. Music, by the way, works the same way. Mozgi Entertainment, for instance, was one of Neurotrack’s clients earlier. They are testing the quality of the track both on their fans’ and non-fans’ reactions. This could take music production to a new level. Perhaps this is one of the reasons Western music is of better quality and, accordingly, more popular. It has its math inside.

What is the role of neuromarketing in our future?

Miniaylo believes it’s critical for optimization of the content that is produced for both online and offline mediums.

“We want it to become a culture of digital marketing consciousness and thus simplify people’s lives. Then all the amount of annoying advertisements both online and offline would switch to quality content. If we optimize this, everyone would feel better”, said Minyaylo.