In 1980s Pepsi started a campaign called Pepsi challenge where people were given a sip of Pepsi and coke. Pepsi won the challenge but the results from the challenge do not show the market reality where Coke has captured most of the market share in United States. A neuroscientist Read Montague did the study on the Pepsi campaign. He found out that if people were not told which drink they are having, half of them preferred Pepsi. But the interesting thing was when consumers were told which drink, three fourth of them preferred coke. This is due to the image of coke customers have in their mind about coke. Taste of the product became secondary thing. According to Montague coke had affect on medial prefrontal cortex, which controls the higher thinking in the brain.
Neuromarketing has been used in political ad campaigns. Famous in Political advertising world, Fred Davis is a firm believer in neuromarketing. He uses neuromarketign as basis for ads. His list of clients includes George Bush, John McCain and the latest is Cristin O’donnalld, who ran Delaware senate elections and her ad campaign caught the attention of everyone. Brian Boquist, an Oregon Republican Senate also admitted using neuromareting techniques in his campaign. Republicans Oregon Republican State Senator, Brian Boquist also admits to having employed political neuromarketing in his campaigns. In recent midterm elections republican ads were appealing to the emotions of the voters. Was it a reason that republicans won the election? May be not but it may have made some difference. May be it is difficult to know if the politicians are using these techniques. No politician will accept the fact he is using influencing techniques to get votes. Using these techniques is not wrong in my view because the results will give better picture for the parties about their campaigns. It will be easy for the companies to know if particular ad grasps the attention of the customers.
Does it seduce them enough to buy particular product or watch the movie? Is it novelty to them? Are they aware of the product? Are some of the few questions marketing firms always have been taking into account, But Neuromarketing provides enough data by which big companies have better understanding of market and customers. Companies do need numbers to rely on since amount of money they put into marketing and advertising campaigns is huge. I sometimes get confused when I go to any big store for shopping; neuromarketing techniques used by companies may make it easy for me, because companies will know better what I want than myself.
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