Neuromarketing Stories

Neuromarketing: Coca-Cola or Pepsi?

Coca-Cola and Pepsi (Sousa, 2014) are two well-known brands of soft drinks that have been on the market for over 100 years, which has led to some “wars” between them.

Thus, Pepsi began a study in which it wanted to determine which of the brands (Pepsi or Coca-Cola) was better to the level of consumer experience. This study was known as the “Pepsi Challenge” that directly compared the two brands, investigating evidence, based on blind taste tests, that allowed consumers to claim Pepsi to Coca-Cola.

If Pepsi were better than Coca-Cola, then why would Coca-Cola sell more? The response was obtained through Neuromarketing with the use of fRMI.

The 40 participants were offered these soft drinks, but without the participants knew what was brand. When asked which flavor had the best taste, Pepsi was a winner. In addition, data provided by fRMI showed that during tasting there was a stimulus in the reward-related brain area.

However, all this result changes drastically as participants are told which brand of soda they were tasting. Now, a different region of the brain was more activated and notoriously Coca-Cola is the winner. This brain region that is activated is closely associated with cognitive functions such as: thinking, judging, preferences and memory.

So, what happened?

The difference between the two situations is due to the brand image of the two refrigerants. The participants, knowing the brand of soda they drank, albeit subconsciously, thought of brand and souvenirs and not just taste. Such sentiment is capable of changing consumer opinion drastically.

Thus, this study revealed not only that Neuromarketing is a more valuable one to know the mind of the consumer and that Coca-Cola presents a more attractive image due to a more effective marketing.

Hyundai: Do You Like the Car?

In 2011, Hyundai (Hyundai did a neuromarketing study that had 15 men and women, 2015) performed a Neuromarketing study with the aim at studying a testing sportive model car. For that, 15 men and 15 women wer a more attractive image due to a more e selected, which were asked to exanimate some specific parts of car: bumper, windshield and tires. While they were exanimating the car, their EEG signal was acquired and analysed in order to understand the consumer’ preferences with impact into de decision making. Taking into account the results, the brand concluded the need of taking some changes in the car, before starting the manufacture’s process.

Xbox Live vs. Traditional Television Spots @ Microsoft

In 2009, Microsoft and Initiative (Dooley, Neuromarketing At Microsoft, 2011) took a pilot testing for studying the user engagement with advertising across multiple technologies platforms: Xbox Live and traditional television spots.

They performed a study for analysing the advertising effectiveness based on Neuromarketing techniques. With this study, companies would like to answer two questions: how to measure audience engagement with their brand and how to measure advertising impact across several media types.

For this study, two brands were involved: Hyundai and KIA Motors.

Subjects were exposed to different media’s types and advertising companies, while wearing a special headset. This headset was able to extract brain activity, respiration rate, head movements, heart rate, blink rate and skin temperature.

The exposing consisted of Xbox Live campaigns and traditional television spots. The Xbox Live campaigns consisted of interactive outdoors where subjects could interact with the content and download videos. The traditional videos included a 30 second television spot for Hyundai and 60 second in theatre spot for Kia Motors.

The results showed more time spent, more recalls and higher emotional and cognitive levels for Xbox Live campaigns that traditional videos. Furthermore, it was also possible to concluded that Xbox Live campaigns represent further 238 seconds in the consumer engagement than traditional videos. This drives to increase unaided recall and brand awareness. For example, the Xbox LIVE ads delivered 90 percent unaided brand recall, compared with 78 percent unaided brand recall rates for the 60-second spot. In addition, the Xbox LIVE ads delivered higher levels of both cognitive and emotional responses.