A Neuromarketing Perspective for Assessing the Role and Impact of Typefaces on Consumer Purchase Decision

Introduction

The reflections on the impact of the globalization process on social life and the rapid development of technological change have affected marketing efforts and forced them to develop. Conscious consumers, intense competition environment, and market dynamics among businesses cause inadequate marketing strategies and traditional research techniques and unsuitable marketing strategies.

In today's world, neuroscience has advanced conventional marketing research, increasingly providing indications that emotions and subconscious responses can strongly impact perceptions and decision-making of consumers (Mileti et al. 2016). Consumers almost make their purchasing decisions in line with their perceptions. The real perceptions of consumers are formed as a result of their needs, wishes, values, and personal experiences. For this reason, it is thought that it will be better for companies developing in recent years to pay more attention to consumers' perceptions in strong marketing departments. It is also essential for marketers to understand the concept of “perception” because consumers make decisions and act in line with their perception of reality (Rani, 2014).

Researchers have been using neuroscience techniques to facilitate their product development and marketing/advertising endeavors for decades (As cited in Spence 2016, Krugman, 1971; Weinstein, 1981; Weinstein, Drozdenko, & Weinstein, 1984). It became difficult to understand human behavior and purchasing decisions with traditional methods and analysis. The hypothesis, which assumes that consumer behavior is rational, has lost its applicability. Consumers are irrational while giving decisions (Kahneman, 2011).

In this context, to have a better idea of the consumer's mind plays an essential role in designing marketing strategies. Furthermore, using neurological tools in marketing makes it easier to predict consumer behavior. Some researches provide evidence that typefaces convey meanings that influence important marketing constructs, and they influence how consumers perceive brands and also what they remember about brands (Childers & Jass, 2002). Some other researches also prove that people tend to match tastes with shapes (Velasco et al., 2014a, 2015), such as angular shapes with bitter-tasting foods, round shapes with sweet-tasting foods (Deroy & Spence, 2013). Moreover, others show that consumers can get affected by the graphic design of the product easily. Brands show a unique personality on the product that they represent.

The advertising industry is growing day by day, and it increases its importance in individuals' lives by feeding on different fields. “Creativity” and “difference” came to the fore with the diversification of channels and enrichment of advertising application areas. (Göksu, 2016). So that, they differ from each other by their strategies in the market (Genç &Arslanbaş, 2018). The designer of the brand logos focuses on the population that they appeal to and their needs and desires to be able to attract their attention and persuade them. Font types can convey various feelings to consumers, such as peace, trust, cheapness, luxury, etc. For example, tourism logos of the countries are generally designed using Sans Serif font types, because they represent the modernity, timelessness, and naturality (Ersan&Çeken, 2017). However, the main problem is, despite all these opportunities and technologies, neurotechnological studies are not turned to good account. Besides the cost, another reason can be seen as the lack of awareness of its effects.

This chapter offers a literature review of the effects of typefaces on consumers' purchase decisions from a neuromarketing perspective and emphasizes the importance of this field. On the other hand, the aim of the research to prove that neuromarketing tools can be essential for analyzing customer's reactions in order to apply sustainable and more analytical marketing assessments. Initially, under the literature review, neuromarketing and typeface notions have been evaluated, and then the impacts of typefaces on consumer purchase decision has been expressed with anent samplings.