ANALYZE THIS! Neuromarketing is a bad pitch. Don't swing. (or as George Parker says, it was rubbish then and it's rubbish now)You don't need neuromarketing to see if consumers lie. The truth is, when you talk to consumers, they can only tell you what they know. And they have been trained by expopsure to your ads and education - the lowest common denominator. In this environment I found after 45 years of consumer inquiry that if you ask consumers questions, you don't get the voice of the consumer, you get the voice of the inquirer through the question being asked - a form of bias that will lead you astray - and consumers wondering what to them seem to be dumb questions. Consumers are suspicious of advertisers, con men and thieves (you). But why bother with questions? As Atticus Finch said in To Kill A Mockingbird, "You can't ask a question you don't already know the answer to." And you only know so much.
So the only alternative is not to map or neuroanalyze brains or to ask consumers questions. The alternative is to stimulate consumer minds with in-depth, comprehensive, product-based written stimulative materials that cause them to think the thoughts they've not had about your products - sparking the creative process in earnest - and determining what really motivates people about your products. The materials prescribed cover product design, packaging, delivery systems, price, quality, image, attitudes, sensory, form, function, usage and over 500 other PRODUCT POTENTIALS or DIMENSIONS we've identified that all go into the perceptual mix.
In 45 years in packaged goods working with the cream of the crop I have found that if you ask consumers no questions they can tell you no lies - but you will know truth - and this is how George Mennen discovered that he should manufacture solid "Speed" stick antiperspirants - still the most popular today. This "question-free" process turned around brands such as Pampers, Folgers, Crisco, Pepto and many others for Procter & Gamble under the reign of 5 Chairman excluding Alan Lafely who is now letting the retailer tail wag the dog. It is also the root of the new product process that created Chunky Soup, Tic Tac Mints, Baked Lays Potato Chips, Cold-filtered Miller Genunine Draft Beer and 100 other code-cracking brands.
So whether it was Al Pacino or Robert DiNero who starred in ANALYZE THIS, analyze this.
You'll be wasting your time by helping neuroscientists make their next car payment. But the old marketers at the top, fearful of loosing their job, will tell new marketers to test anything they want - as long as it's not actually a better idea.
Clients exposed to Calle & Company processes (my company) stopped conducting focus groups years ago. And of course, we set the pace for the other early qualitative and quantitative pioneers. We concluded long ago that focus groups, need segmentation studies, in fact anything that put the consumer under a microscope put the consumer in an artificial environment - and no one performs well as a lab rat. So we stripped away the veneer of information gathering and measurement - in all of its ill-mannered forms - to avoid the pitfalls and poor traditions of question-based research. Our clients ended up hitting far more home runs, and their agencies put more award winning ads on Cannes reels.
Here is some advice I give to my family before we head to Del Mar, Santa Anita or Churchill Downs for the races. Give me the money. Go to the races. When you are done I'll give you your money back and you'll come out ahead. Don't swing. Neuromarketing is a bad pitch.
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