Post-Super Bowl Briefing

Very soon, we will be subjected to a variety of neuromarketing-based opinions on which Super Bowl 2010 ads worked, and which didn’t. While we are awaiting these analyses, I thought I’d point readers at a good article on one kind of neuromarketing study methodology by WIRED writer Alexis Madrigal. It’s accurate, largely devoid of hype, and puts things in good perspective:

On the internet, with the rise of pay-per-click advertising and all sorts of other data-driven Google magic, the amount of wasted advertising is dropping. But on television and other media, things are murkier.

Big companies still need TV ads to build their brands. Coca-Cola isn’t trying to get you to buy a Coke right now, it’s building the company’s brands so that the next 1,000 times you buy a soft drink, you choose its products. And it wants to do the same thing its search ad-purchasing counterparts are doing: cut down on their wasted advertising. [From WIRED – How Your Biometrics Can Make Super Bowl Ads Better by Alexis Madrigal.]

Madrigal’s article describes how Innerscope conducts their studies using fairly simple EEG monitoring of large groups of people with aggregated results, and underscores that the “zombie consumer” fears are greatly overrated. It’s a good read for those new to the neuromarketing concept.