What is this neuromarketing after all? We increasingly live in an attention economy. Every day, we are impacted by between 4,000 and 10,000 advertisements. Digital platforms compete for people’s time and the KPI of success is measured by making the user’s feed stop.

Attention is the gold mine of this saturated economy and the contemporary currency of success. But how can brands proliferate in this environment, given that we consumers have such limited cognitive capacity?

Alexandre Ribeiro addressed the resolution of these issues applied to neuromarketing in his master’s thesis, and resorted to the help of the WYgroup. Two years later, he is still with the group and continues to dedicate himself to the application of neuromarketing in the digital world, at WYperformance. But after all, what is this neuromarketing and why does it fascinate us so much?

Combining Marketing with Neuroscience, Neuromarketing is an area of specialization for studies of brands, markets, and consumers. In our last WYtalk, conducted by Alexandre Ribeiro, we got to know Neuromarketing in more depth, what applications it has and how it actually influences the consumer in their buying process, and how it can help to increase business results on digital platforms.

Neuromarketing is a research technique as valid as any other, be it surveys, interviews, or focus groups. As in any study, the choice of the appropriate technique will depend on the goals we have, and in the areas of attention and emotion, the use of neuromarketing techniques will be the most appropriate.

On several occasions, we end up making decisions based on our opinion, experience, or personal taste. Some examples of questions that are usually left to subjectivity are:

• Does the new ad work better with upbeat music, or with calmer music?

• Should we bet on red or orange for the CTA on a landing page?

• What menu structure should we choose for the new site?

• What is the packaging in this particular supermarket aisle that most attracts attention?

In this sense, we went to understand how Neuromarketing can help answer these questions. With the voluntary help of an audience member, Alexandre performed a live demo using eye tracking, that is, eye tracking, where it was possible to measure the visual attention of this “guinea pig”, concerning six packs of juices. In this way, we were able to understand which packaging received the most attention, for the longest time and in the first place. It is, in fact, fascinating to be able to watch and dissect a function as innate and immediate as simply looking. And this analysis helps us later, to do the reverse process, of looking at ourselves and realizing, in reality, where our mind takes us.

In this study of the mind allied to marketing, in addition to eye tracking, where we obtain data related to the level of attention of consumers, we can resort to a series of other techniques. WYperformance has Eye Tracking equipment, a device that measures Galvanic Skin Response and Heart Rate, and an emotional self-report device.

Through the Eye Tracker, we were able to obtain data related to the level of attention of consumers. With the Galvanic Skin Response and Heart Rate measuring device, we obtain data related to the emotional and physiological activation of consumers. Finally, the self-report device allows us to identify the valence of emotions felt by users – that is, whether emotions are positive or negative.

Through the use of these techniques, WYperformance is mainly focused on four main areas:

• Communication Proof of Concept: Tests that allow optimizing digital communication campaigns, namely on social networks, on TV, Radio, and even Out of Home.

• Definition of logo and brand identity.

• Product Optimizations: Namely packaging tests that allow improving the results in the linear.

• UX Optimizations: Evaluating and improving user experience on websites, apps, or even other more static materials, such as brochures.

For each of these 4 categories, a series of subcategories appear. Each subcategory requires different materials to be tested. Through these tests, extremely relevant insights for the business result.

Now, knowing that by using neuromarketing we can unequivocally measure the effectiveness and emotional charge of communication materials and optimize them according to the intended results, we are now able to understand the pertinence of their use and all the potential that the future will bring us – which is coming soon.

Article originally published in LÍDER Magazine.