Did you know that 80% of our purchasing decisions are made by the most emotional and subconscious part of our brain? And do you know how long it takes us to reach that decision??
TWO SECONDS.
In two seconds, our limbic system has decided which packet of biscuits we must buy, which cologne we are going to use and which wine we are going to try, and at no point has there been a rational process in this action, it is all purely emotionally driven.
Many companies have realised that to reach the consumer we have to get in touch with their emotions and the most instinctive part of their brains, as we face ever-increasing competition among brands and the number of visual stimuli that we process throughout the day has become almost incalculable. It is not surprising therefore, that some firms have gone a step further, and in the process this has given rise to a new field, the outcome of an over-stimulated society, of constant changes and fleeting loyalty: Neuromarketing.
Neuromarketing is a discipline that studies processes in the brain that explain consumer behaviour and decision-making.
With a suitable design, neuromarketing can ascertain what is going on in a customer’s brain in response to the stimuli it receives, thus providing a much more powerful field of study than anything traditional marketing could provide.
By applying new research methodologies, together with the advances emerging in neuropsychology and the neurosciences, neuromarketing helps us to understand why consumers sometimes behave the way they do. By knowing the mechanisms whereby we take decisions, how we process information at the attentional and perceptive level, studying memory with particular emphasis on the capacity for retention, etc. this discipline has been able to respond with a higher degree of certainty to many of the questions that we have always asked and until now have been unable to answer
It is undeniable that since this field began to develop, in the early 90s, until today, things have changed substantially. With the help of technology that is developing by leaps and bounds, and consequently with the new discoveries that are emerging about how the brain works, communication strategies have seen a development that would have unthinkable just a few years ago.
These advances have set a real challenge for companies, as there has been a paradigm shift: Communication can no longer be understood as a process that starts with a company and ends with a customer or vice-versa, but rather as a cyclical and dynamic process in which every detail counts; it will not suffice to have a good, striking campaign, one has to break moulds and aim to make an indelible impression that connects the consumer with the brand like an umbilical cord.
