Neuromarketing is getting better
In the early 2000s, advances in brain imaging led to a boost in research in neurosciences and spread to other fields like finance and economics. In my view, the best summary of many of these findings (and frankly one of the best books on personal finance ever written) is Jason Zweig’s “Your Money and Your Brain”. It also contains my all-time favourite research finding in neuroeconomics, namely that the expectation of financial gains is very similar to the brain activation observed when you are high on cocaine. Give a moment’s thought for the university ethics commission that was presented with the request to run brain imaging on subjects who were under the influence of cocaine. Must have been some interesting discussions.
Of course, the commercialisation of these brain imaging techniques and other neuroscientific tools was not far behind the academic research. There is some criticism about using these tools for marketing and other commercial purposes, claiming that they are based on some dubious assumptions and thus lead to wrong recommendations in practice. However, the technological progress continues, and big tech is increasingly using these methods. Two years ago, Facebook launched the Center for Marketing Science Innovation. What sounds innocent is in fact a lab that tries to identify marketing methods that directly trigger desired emotions in the human brain and turn consumers into “addicts” of specific goods and services. As I have discussed recently, Facebook consumption already is similar to smoking cigarettes and the latest trend towards neuromarketing is designed mostly to increase this addictive effect of social media and other services. All in the name to grow profits and increase the “moat” of existing players like Facebook and others.
Brain scan when expecting a financial gain (top) and under the influence of cocaine (bottom)
Source: Jason Zweig, “Your Money and Your Brain”.