‘Do I believe my survey data, or the vendor's brain scan?'

This is the second part of BrandLine's conversation with Neale Martin, Ph.D., Professor of Innovation Management at the Coles College of Business, Kennesaw State University; author of Habit: The 95% of Behavior Marketers Ignore; and CEO of Sublime Behaviour Marketing and Ntelec Inc, on marketing to the subconscious mind. Excerpts:

Is it possible to change embedded impressions in the human subconscious?

The first place many of us go when we talk about ‘changing human behaviour through the power of the subconscious' is into the realm of subliminal messaging. The idea that someone is manipulating your behaviour is one we all naturally rebel against, and it conjures up nefarious images of corrupt business and political leaders forcing us to do things against our will. The truth is that you can influence behaviour through unconscious means, and marketers and brands have already been doing it, albeit unscientifically and often without them really knowing what they are doing.

One of these methods is ‘priming'. Priming occurs when an unconscious stimulus (one that occurs so quickly your conscious brain cannot register it) increases the likelihood of a certain behaviour occurring later. In one study by Tanya Chartrand at Duke University, participants were shown 20 pictures of different scenes and asked to score them on some attribute. Unbeknownst to them, some of the participants viewed pictures that also contained a bottle of Dasani (Coca-Cola's water brand) but not prominently. Participants were later asked if they recalled any branded products in the pictures. They could not. However, when the participants left the lab they were offered a choice of three different brands of bottled water (Dasani and two other brands). Those who had viewed the pictures with the embedded Dasani bottle were far more likely to choose the brand, than those who did not.

Priming quite literally ‘primes' our neural connections and makes them more likely to fire, influencing what stimuli we attend to, how we behave, and what we feel. But this kind of subconscious influence is restricted by our previous behaviours, preferences, and knowledge structures. If I don't like Dasani water, no amount of hidden product placement is going to get me to choose it over something else.

Another of Dr Chartrand's studies found that the Apple logo made people more creative. All of these primes are fascinating and exciting, but were discovered in controlled laboratory experiments within specific cultures and demographics. The messy real world is where marketers operate, and so the level of difficulty is higher and predictability is lower.

There is a view that neuromarketing has not taken off the way it could have - would you agree? Why? What explains the hesitance? Hubris?

‘Neuromarketing' is a trendy term that has little meaning, fewer standards, and no coherent framework. For some, neuromarketing means use of fMRI machines to give us pictures of the consumer's mind in action. For others, the term relates to the use of EEGs and other biometric techniques, and to others still it is the larger concept of applying research in neuroscience to marketing.

Much of the science is being oversold. Many companies are touting a proprietary EEG, fMRI, or galvanic skin response methodology and creating very believable pictures, charts, and graphs that provide a patina of scientific credibility. These outputs lack statistical validity and cannot be externally evaluated because the companies conducting the research hold their methods as proprietary secrets. In addition, the insights generated will have to compete with insights from traditional sources such as focus groups and data analysis, and managers are left to figure out what is relevant. Do I believe my survey data, or this vendor's brain scan? With many of these ‘neuromarketing' companies trying to generate a buzz by releasing controversial or shocking discoveries that infer causal connections from their data, there has even been a backlash against these methods.

Many companies are attempting to graft these ideas and methods to their marketing models and approaches. In that sense, neuromarketing is growing relatively quickly.

The much bigger issue is that recent findings in neuroscience and cognitive psychology reveal that marketing is built on a flawed foundation - a 1960s' cognitive psychology view that all behaviour begins with a conscious recognition of need. We now know that this is completely false, and that most behaviour occurs completely outside of conscious introspection, or only engages the conscious mind at certain points in the process. Our new understanding of the human mind would naturally increase the appeal of certain neuromarketing techniques, but the reality is that all of marketing needs to fundamentally change for these techniques to provide value and take off. Until our marketing organisations change how they do business to reflect this new understanding of consumer behaviour, these new insights will have only limited impact.

What has been your experience in understanding human behaviour on social media? Can that behaviour be trusted as being stimulated by the subconscious?

Social media defies attempts to categorise or control and is forcing companies to completely re-evaluate their relationships with customers. On the one hand, most of the information that is Tweeted is simply the retransmission of stories that are picked up from traditional media sources. On the other hand, Egypt serves as a great example of the power of this new communication revolution. The idea that this can be harnessed by a company I believe to be naive. Organisations need to attempt to manage this process; they cannot hope to control it.

Besides marketing and brands, what are the other areas in which neuroscience can be applied in management? Human resources?

Like the consumer mind, an organisation is a complex, dynamic structure with many entrenched habits of its own. This is not just a human resources issue, but also one that affects the entire organisation. Every person working at a company is receiving feedback on their daily behaviour, and developing compensatory behaviours to maximise reinforcement or neutral responses and minimise punishment.

For example, sales divisions are responsible for meeting certain numbers each quarter, and do whatever they can to meet those numbers. They may issue discounts or coupons, or try to oversell to customers. Their behaviour may have a negative impact on the future habits of customers, but they are still being reinforced to make the numbers.

Organisations have a tremendous opportunity to improve how they operate by thinking in terms of behaviour, and how their policies and procedures reinforce, or punish, the behaviours that occur.

Another golden opportunity is healthcare. Globally, there is a growing problem with obesity, which is in turn creating serious health issues, such as Type II Diabetes and heart disease. Yet our institutions of health are still taking a conscious-mind approach, asking people to ‘eat healthy' without understanding the complex behaviours and feedback mechanisms that have created the problem. It is nothing but completely underestimating how difficult it is to change our habits. True behavioural intervention requires an understanding of what is driving that behaviour, and those behavioural drivers are often unconsciously motivated.

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