Neuromarketing

Ad men use brain scanners to probe our emotional response
Neuromarketers are using MRI scanners and electrode caps to work out our hidden reactions to their adverts

The world's biggest companieshave got a new way of convincing you to buy their products – by getting inside your head. Brands including Google, Facebook and ITV are turning to mind-reading technology to help them develop productsand create adverts that people like.
Traditionally, focus groups have been used to tell marketeers what they think of adverts. Unfortunately for advertisers, some people don't tell the truth.
Faced withthe prospect of consumers hiding their emotions – perhaps a middle-aged man reluctant to reveal that he shed a tear at a sentimental John Lewis Christmas advert – a new breed of "neuromarketer" hasemerged, armed with medical technology to probe consumers' brains for genuine responses.
"We put a cap on your head that measures your brain impulses," said AK Pradeep, a pioneer of neuromarketingscience and chief executive of NeuroFocus, one of the biggest players in a booming industry. "We measure all parts of your brain continuously. Second by second, we measure how much attention you'repaying. We get [to learn] what emotions you're experiencing and what memories you're memorising."
Pradeep says watching people's brains via caps covered in electrodes or magnetic scanners that are normallyused by hospitals to detect cancer is better than direct questioning because, "when you ask people to tell you how they feel, the very act of thinking about a feeling changes the feeling".
NeuroFocusgrades adverts against the emotions the advertisers wished to evoke on a scale of 10 (perfect; don't change a thing) to zero (requires major surgery). Low-scoring ads are sent back with suggestions ofchanges to make them more appealing.
A spokesman for NeuroFocus, which was bought last year by the $5bn global measurement and analytics firm Nielsen, said the company has worked with Google,...