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Neuromarketing, an emerging subject and generating diverse body of knowledge in the extant literature, this study aims to present qualitative and quantitative knowledge of the neuroscientific domain by analysing the application of various neuromarketing tools and techniques in conducting the research studies. This paper comprises a systematic review of 61 journal articles combined with bibliometric analysis of 577 peer-reviewed journal articles following the PRISMA framework, employing content analysis and keyword co-occurrence analysis. The comprehensive analysis presented a research profile illustrating chronological trends in neuromarketing research and discovered potential new domains, demonstrating explored and unexplored practical utility in neuromarketing. The results highlight the application of Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), eye-tracking, and neural networks for data analysis as prospective areas in neuroscientific research. An overview of existing neuroscientific tools was presented based on the user context and research outcomes, outlining their benefits and limitations, along with ethical concerns. A theoretical framework was proposed to illustrate the neuromarketing effect on consumer behaviour, suggesting potential areas for future investigation. The findings of the study will be of interest to scholars and marketers in providing the insights on various neuro tools and techniques, and its significant role in decision-making, such comprehension may improve marketing effectiveness.

IntroductionAffective decision-making is a prominent topic in consumer psychology research, with its core assumption being that consumers tend to purchase brands and commodities they like. However, the reasons behind why we develop emotional responses of liking or disliking toward certain commodities, as well as what the underlying neural mechanisms are, remain largely unknown.MethodsThis study utilized the S1–S2 paradigm in an experiment wherein S1 presented 12 types of commodities and S2 displayed 48 distinct colored squares. Participants were instructed to assess whether they “Like” or “Dislike” the commodity in S1, which was colored with the S2 color. Electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings were obtained during the reaction process and subsequently analyzed to examine the components of S2-induced event-related potentials (ERPs).ResultsThe analysis revealed that S2 elicited a significant N270 in the prefrontal scalp area under both the “Like” and “Dislike” conditions. Interestingly, the amplitude of the N270 was significantly higher during the “Dislike” condition compared to the “Like” condition.DiscussionThe N270 component was shown to reflect the conflict in physical attributes between S1 and S2, as well as the conflict between commodity and color. This highlights the potential utility of this component as an objective EEG indicator of consumer commodity color preferences in future marketing research.

This study aims to improve college magazines, making them more engaging and user-friendly. We combined eye-tracking technology with artificial intelligence to accurately predict consumer behaviours and preferences. Our analysis included three college magazines, both online and in PDF format. We evaluated user experience using neuromarketing eye-tracking AI prediction software, trained on a large consumer neuroscience dataset of eye-tracking recordings from 180,000 participants, using Tobii X2 30 equipment, encompassing over 100 billion data points and 15 consumer contexts. An analysis was conducted with R programming v. 2023.06.0+421 and advanced SPSS statistics v. 27, IBM. (ANOVA, Welch’s Two-Sample t-test, and Pearson’s correlation). Our research demonstrated the potential of modern eye-tracking AI technologies in providing insights into various types of attention, including focus, engagement, cognitive demand, and clarity. The scientific accuracy of our findings, at 97–99%, underscores the reliability and robustness of our research, instilling confidence in the audience. This study also emphasizes the potential for future research to explore automated datasets, enhancing reliability and applicability across various fields and inspiring hope for further advancements in the field.

Qiang Wei,1,* Dong Lv,1,2,* Shuna Fu,3,* Dongmei Zhu,1 Minxiao Zheng,1 Si Chen,3 Shihang Zhen4 1Department of Psychology, Jianghan University, WuHan, People’s Republic of China; 2School of Business Administration, Huaqiao University, Quanzhou, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Applied Psychology & Human Development, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada; 4College of Economics and Management, Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University, XianYang, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Qiang Wei, Department of Psychology, Jianghan University, WuHan, HuBei, People’s Republic of China, Tel +86-18671454618, Email weiqiang@jhun.edu.cn Dong Lv, School of Business Administration, Huaqiao University, Quanzhou, FuJian, People’s Republic of China, Tel +86-15798002728, Email lvdong@stu.hqu.edu.cnBackground: Tourism consumption is a topic with heated debates in tourism research, and pricing tourism products is a crucial task for tourism managers. Different types of tourist attractions offer different experiences to tourists, which affect their price perceptions and purchase decisions.Methods: This study combined questionnaires and event-related potentials (ERPs) measures to explore the magnitude of psychological conflict and the degree of emotional arousal that consumers experience when faced with different prices of goods in different scenic types.Results: The questionnaire results showed that attraction type influenced consumers’ price perceptions and that consumers were willing to pay higher prices for products in attractions. The ERP results implied that in the early stage of cognition, attraction type did not affect consumers’ perceptual processing, while price information attracted consumers’ cognitive attention. In the late stage of cognition, attraction type, and price information jointly influenced consumers’ decision-making, and consumers tended to accept high prices of products in entertainment attractions and cultural attractions, but consumers were more sensitive to the price of products in cultural attractions and less tolerant to price increases.Conclusion: The study elucidated how price information influenced consumers’ purchase decisions of tourism products at different stages of the dual-process theory, which can assist tourism managers in devising different pricing strategies and positioning strategies based on the attributes of attractions, to enhance product sales and revenues. This would further the vision of the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) of “tourism fostering economic development”.Keywords: tourist attractions, price perception, neuromarketing, event-related potentials, P2, LPP

The growing interest in consumer behavior in the digital environment is leading scholars and companies to focus on consumer behavior and choices on digital platforms, such as the metaverse. On this immersive digital shopping platform, consumer neuroscience provides an optimal opportunity to explore consumers’ emotions and cognitions. In this study, neuroscience techniques (EEG, SC, BVP) were used to compare emotional and cognitive aspects of shopping between metaverse and traditional e-commerce platforms. Participants were asked to purchase the same product once on a metaverse platform (Second Life, SL) and once via an e-commerce website (EC). After each task, questionnaires were administered to measure perceived enjoyment, informativeness, ease of use, cognitive effort, and flow. Statistical analyses were conducted to examine differences between SL and EC at the neurophysiological and self-report levels, as well as between different stages of the purchase process. The results show that SL elicits greater cognitive engagement than EC, but it is also more mentally demanding, with a higher workload and more memorization, and fails to elicit a strong positive emotional response, leading to a poorer shopping experience. These findings provide insights not only for digital-related consumer research but also for companies to improve their metaverse shopping experience. Before investing in the platform or creating a digital retail space, companies should thoroughly analyze it, focusing on how to enhance users’ cognition and emotions, ultimately promoting a better consumer experience. Despite its limitations, this pilot study sheds light on the emotional and cognitive aspects of metaverse shopping and suggests potential for further research with a consumer neuroscience approach in the metaverse field.

This paper presents an innovative research project that aims to study the emotional factors influencing decision-making elicited by infomercials, a powerful sales technique that uses emotional communication to engage viewers, capture attention, and build trust. Using cutting-edge consumer neuroscience techniques, this study focuses on the identification of the variables that most impact the Call-to-Action and Purchase Intention. Forty participants were selected and divided into two groups, with each group exposed to one of two infomercials (condition A = male seller; condition B = female seller). EEG signals were recorded as well as Eye-tracking data. After the viewing, participants completed a self-report questionnaire. Results show that seller characteristics such as Performance and Trustworthiness, as well as Neurophysiological variables such as Approach-Withdrawal Index, Willingness to Pay, Attention and Engagement, significantly impact the final Call-to-Action, Purchase Intention, and infomercial Likeability responses. Moreover, eye-tracking data revealed that the more time is spent observing crucial areas of the infomercial, the more it will increase our Willingness to Pay and our interest and willingness to approach the infomercial and product. These findings highlight the importance of considering both the Seller attributes and the consumers’ Neurophysiological responses to understand and predict their behaviors in response to marketing stimuli since they all seem to play a crucial role in shaping consumers’ attitudes and purchase intentions. Overall, the study is a significant pilot in the new field of neuroselling, shedding light on crucial emotional aspects of the seller/buyer relationship and providing valuable insights for researchers and marketers.

Neuromarketing is the application of neuropsychology in marketing research to study the sensorimotor behavior of consumers such as cognitive and emotional responses to marketing stimuli with the help of new technologies. The performance of priority detection systems based on brain signals depends on the appropriate selection of feature extraction methods and machine learning algorithm. At first, EEG signals were pre-processed by low-pass and Savitzky Golay filters, and the features of discrete wavelet transform (DWT) and Lampel-Ziv complexity (LZC) were extracted from them. After that the features are normalized and divided into training and testing. Later on, the normalized features are given to a four-layer deep neural network (DNN) to predict the results of the training. Finally, the proposed model is ready to use. To evaluate the performance of the proposed model, parameters of precision, recall, and accuracy have been considered. The results show that a precision of 82%, recall of 87.5%, and accuracy of 87.5% for distinguishing the two categories of liking and disliking have been obtained in an average of five runs. In this study, the effect of advertising on the brain activity of consumers was investigated by analyzing EEG signals. Experimental results of the proposed model show that studies in this field can change and improve marketing strategies to improve producer performance and consumer satisfaction, leading to a mutual benefit.IntroductionNeuromarketing is the study of brain reactions using medical technologies in response to marketing stimuli (Amin et al., 2020). By analyzing the collected information, companies try to find the reasons for consumer decisions to buy goods. They also want to understand which brain regions become more active during decision-making.Neuromarketing researchers assume that most consumer decisions are made unconsciously and in a fraction of a second. They also believe that the choices and decisions consumers make are often based on emotions instead of product comparison. Therefore, consumers’ emotions influence decision-making. On the other hand, consumer feelings can be highly influenced by internal and external factors. Detecting the consumer’s emotional state reveals his/her real preferences (Aldayel et al., 2020). The feeling and understanding caused by advertising make the consumer buy a particular product.Neuromarketing studies are done through recording or analyzing biometric data, or through a combination of them such as electroencephalography (EEG), facial expression, movement pattern recognition, eye tracking, and galvanic skin response (GSR). A consumer preference recognition system based on EEG signals helps to understand consumer behavior and discover how a person makes a purchase decision. Understanding this, helps marketers and organizations to increase customer satisfaction, positive customer experiences, consumer loyalty, and revenue (Aldayel et al., 2020). Materials and MethodsIn this article, the EEG signals of 25 participants were used while viewing 14 different internet products of three different types. Such signals were recorded through 14 channels at different head surface areas with the international 10-20 system including AF3, F7, F3, FC5, T7, P7, O1, O2, P8, T8, FC6, F4, F8, and AF4. Common mode sense (CMS) and driven right leg (DRL) reference electrodes are placed at P3 and P4 positions above the ear. First, the EEG signals are pre-processed by band pass filter and Savitzky Golay filter. Then, the discrete wavelet transform (DWT) and Lampel-Ziv complexity (LZC) features are extracted from them. After that, normalized features are divided into two parts of training and testing. In the proposed model, the four-layer deep neural network (DNN) classifier is used to predict and distinguish two categories of liking and disliking. The input layer of DNN is not recognized as a layer in the network and is known as zero layer. Hidden layers include units with rectified linear unit (ReLu) (Kingma & Ba, 2014; He et al., 2015). The output is configured as a softmax layer with a binary cross-entropy cost function. Each hidden layer consists of 60% of its previous layer; therefore, the first hidden layer contains 1800 units, the second hidden layer contains 1080 units, and the third hidden layer contains 648 units. The dimension of the output layer is equal to two, because it corresponds to the number of units required to distinguish the categories of liking and disliking. ResultsThe simulations have been performed by MATLAB 2014a software. The training set included 80% of extracted features while the testing set included 20% of extracted features. Various evaluation criteria such as precision, recall, and accuracy have been used to measure the performance of the classifiers. The values of statistical parameters after averaging five times to distinguish two categories of liking and disliking have been found to have 82% precision, 87.5% recall, and 87.5% accuracy. DiscussionVarious evaluation criteria such as precision, recall, and accuracy have been used to measure the performance of the classifier. The proposed model was able to distinguish the two categories of liking and disliking with 87.5% accuracy, which shows an increase of 0.5% compared to the reference (Aldayel et al., 2021). Also, by comparing the results with references (Aldayel et al., 2021; Yadava et al., 2017), it is clear that the LZC feature extraction method has an effective role in predicting the proposed model for separating the two categories of liking and disliking. The results show that the proposed method can provide a complementary solution to traditional measures of predicting products success in the market. Also, the proposed method can be used in the development of market strategies and research by predicting the success of the market through expanding the existing models. This method helps advertisers understand which of their advertisements are effective and how they should plan their advertising strategy. Finally, by comparing the results with previous studies, the combined feature extraction method of LZC and DWT with the use of DNN classification has an effective role in predicting the proposed model for separating the two categories of liking and disliking. *

This article considers the relationship of semiotics to science. A history of semiotics is provided. Questions are addressed of whether semiotics is empirical and what is distinctive about semiotic approaches to the inbuilt challenges of science such as controlling for bias. These scientific matters are supplemented by a discussion of the use and purpose of art in semiotics. The second half of the article demonstrates semiotic technique by applying it to debates within the market research community over the scientific status of semiotics, behavioral economics, neuromarketing, and neuroscience. Provisional conclusions are drawn regarding the fate of new market research methods within these debates, and recommendations for further investigation are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A challenge of the field of neuromarketing is its multidisciplinarity and therefore the knowledge derived from this field of study. In order to provide a holistic view of the field of neuromarketing in this highly theoretical paper, we aimed to integrate some of the knowledge that the field of neuroscience delivers and integrate it into several areas of knowledge for augmenting information that serves neuromarketing. Neuromarketing can help companies and businesses by identifying and creating brain pathways that positively (and, in some cases, adversely) stimulate customers' perceptions of brands, products, and basic images of interest that elicit positive emotions. This research includes a survey of the previously available literature about neuromarketing and its link with other fields of knowledge. This article aims to increase the perspective of marketing practitioners, who do not have much information in the field of neuroscience, as the field of neuroscience is much more complex and requires specialized education. In this direction, we aim to provide a theoretical framework that integrates the syncretism of the fields of psychology, sociology, anthropology, art and economics that provide us with a holistic view of consumer behaviour and decisions of interest to the field of neuromarketing.

Mobile payment has emerged as a popular payment method in many countries. While much research has focused on the antecedents of mobile payment adoption, limited research has investigated the consequences of mobile payment usage relating to how it would influence consumer behaviors (e.g., purchase intention or willingness to pay). Here, we propose that mobile payment not just reduces the “pain of paying,” a traditional view explaining why cashless payment stimulates spending, but it also evokes the “pleasure of paying,” raising from the enhanced processing fluency in completing transactions. We tested this new conceptualization of “pleasure of paying” using EEG, complementing other behavioral measures. In two studies, we found that mobile payment effectively enhanced purchase likelihood (study 1, N = 66) and such an enhancement is generalizable to both hedonic and utilitarian products (study 2, N = 29). By employing EEG measures, we provided the first neural evidence of “pleasure of paying” in addition to the signal of “pain of paying.” Critically, we demonstrated that the “pleasure of paying” is a distinctive psychological mechanism that is induced by mobile payment usage and that the “pleasure of paying” joins the “pain of paying” to mediate the increased purchase intention. We discuss the contributions and implications of these results to the ongoing evolution of cashless payment societies.

Pain and reward have crucial roles in determining human behaviors. It is still unclear how pain influences different stages of reward processing. This study aimed to assess the physical pain’s impact on reward processing with event-related potential (ERP) method. In the present study, a flash sale game (reward-seeking task) was carried out, in which the participants were instructed to press a button as soon as possible to obtain the earphone (a reward) after experiencing either electric shock or not and finally evaluated the outcome of their response. High-temporal-resolution electroencephalogram data were simultaneously recorded to reveal the neural mechanism underlying the pain effect. The ERP analyses revealed that pain affected the feedback processing reflected by feedback-related negativity (FRN) and P300. Specifically, participants in the nopain situation exhibited greater FRN discrepancy between success and failure feedbacks relative to that in the pain situation. Moreover, the P300 amplitude was enhanced in the nopain condition compared to the pain condition regardless of the feedback valence. These results demonstrate that the pain reduced the sensitivity to the reward valence at the early stage and weakened the motivational salience at the late stage. Altogether, this study extends the understanding of the effect of pain on reward processing from the temporal perspective under a purchasing situation.

Neuromarketing has become a new and important topic in the field of marketing in recent years. Consumer behavior research has received increasing attention. In the past decade, the importance of marketing has also been recognized in many fields such as consumer behavior, advertising, information systems, and e-commerce. Neuromarketing uses neurological methods to determine the driving forces behind consumers’ choices. Various neuroscience tools, such as eye movements, have been adopted to help reveal how consumers react to particular advertisements or objects. This information can be used as the basis for new advertising campaigns and brand promotions. To effectively explore the research trends in this field, we must understand the current situation of neuromarketing. A systematic bibliometric analysis can solve this problem by providing publishing trends and information on various topics. In this study, journals that focused on neuromarketing in the field of marketing between 2010 and 2021 were analyzed. These journals were core journals rated by the Association of Business Schools with three or more stars. According to the data analysis results, neuromarketing has 15 main journals with relevant papers. Based on the data collected by the Web of Science (WOS), this study mainly collected 119 references and analyzed the most productive countries, universities, authors, journals, and prolific publications in the field of neuromarketing via Citespace. Through the analysis of knowledge maps, this study explored the mapping of co-citation, bibliographic coupling (BC), and co-occurrence (CC). Moreover, the strongest citation bursts were used to study popular research at different time stages and analyze the research trends of neuromarketing research methods and tools. This study provides an overview of the trends and paths in neuromarketing, which can help researchers understand global trends and future research directions.

A large part of quality and competitive advantage in hospitality comes from friendly service. A lot of research in the hospitality industry is done from the viewpoint of management and aimed at how businesses should be designed to be friendly, yet little research is done into the perspective of the guest to show if the design works. This article tries to start the discussion and drive research towards a better understanding on how interaction between a host and a guest could lead to a concept called Commercial Friendship (CF), which comes from a connection on an emotional and personal level. CF is known to be beneficial to marketing investments, yet little research is done on friendship in marketing in general and even less in the hospitality industry in particular. This article puts forward a conceptual framework grounded in theory from hospitality, marketing, psychology and experience design. Research questions are given along with new ways to do research in hospitality design using a combination of verbal, behavioral and psychophysical measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Managers today are under tremendous pressure to uncover factors driving customers' attitudes and behavior. Unfortunately, traditional methods suffer from well-known limitations and have remained largely unchanged since their introduction decades ago. As a result, there is growing interest in brain-based approaches that may enable managers to directly probe customers' underlying thoughts, feelings, and intentions. This article provides practical guidance to managers on using these tools, focusing on two distinct uses: validation of existing insights and generation of novel insights. Throughout, we emphasize that managers should see traditional and brain-based approaches as complements, rather than substitutes, in understanding customers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted the production of a vast amount of COVID-19-themed brand commercials, in an attempt to exploit the salience of the topic to reach more effectively the consumers. However, the literature has produced conflicting findings of the effectiveness of negative emotional contents in advertisings. The present study aims at exploring the effect of COVID-19-related contents on the hemodynamic brain correlates of the consumer approach or avoidance motivation. Twenty Italian participants were randomly assigned to two different groups that watched COVID-19-related or non-COVID-19-related commercials. The hemodynamic response [oxygenated (O2Hb) and deoxygenated hemoglobin modulations] within the left and right prefrontal cortices (PFC) was monitored with Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) while brand commercials were presented, as the prefrontal lateralization was shown to be indicative of the attitude toward the brand and of the approach-avoidance motivation. First, the findings showed that the COVID-19-related contents were able to prompt emotional processing within the PFC to a higher extent compared to contents non-related to COVID-19. Moreover, the single-channel analysis revealed increased O2Hb activity of the left dorsolateral PFC compared to the left pars triangularis Broca’s area in the group of participants that watched the COVID-19-related commercials, suggesting that the commercials may have driven participants to dedicate more attention toward the processing of the emotional components compared to the semantic meaning conveyed by the ad. To conclude, despite expressing unpleasant emotions, commercials referring to the highly emotional pandemic experience may benefit the advertising efficacy, increasing the capability to reach customers.

A large number of scholars have conducted detailed studies on the effectiveness of commercial advertising by using neuroimaging methods, but only a few scholars have used this method to study the effectiveness of public service announcements (PSAs). To research the relationship between the effectiveness of PSAs and the audience’s implicit awareness, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) was employed to record the neural activity data of participants in this study. The results showed that there was a correlation between activation of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) and the effectiveness of PSAs; The activation of the dlPFC could also be used as an indicator to represent the appeal of advertising content. The results means that neuroimaging tool can also be used to investigate the effectiveness of PSAs, not just commercial advertisements and a few PSAs study, and that neural activity can predict and improve the effectiveness of PSAs before they are released.

Traditional marketing strategies are now no longer seen as effective in communicating with today's sophisticated groups. Today, companies employ knowledge from disciplines other than marketing – such as psychology, neuroscience, and linguistics – when communicating with their target audience. In this study, the content analysis method is used to analyse Effie Turkey gold award-winning advertisements in order to determine the storytelling elements used in advertisements. In order to show the increasing use of storytelling elements in advertisements, the 2011–2013 and 2017–2018 award winning advertisements are studied. The analysis reveals that seven basic plots are used extensively in advertisements to create empathy. We also analysed the archetypes used in the advertisements, and found that the caregiver type is the most commonly used archetype, followed by Jung's explorer type. According to the findings of this study, among all aspects of language syntactic structure seems to play the most important role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past decade, neurophysiological and physiological tools have been used to explore consumer behaviour toward advertising. The studies into brain processes (e.g., emotions, motivation, reward, attention, perception, and memory) toward advertising are scant, and remain unclear in the academic literature. To fill the gap in the literature, this study followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) protocol to extract relevant articles. It extracted and analysed 76 empirical articles from the Web of Science (WoS) database from 2009–2020. The findings revealed that the inferior frontal gyrus was associated with pleasure, while the middle temporal gyrus correlated with displeasure of advertising. Meanwhile, the right superior-temporal is related to high arousal and the right middle-frontal-gyrus is linked to low arousal toward advertisement campaigns. The right prefrontal-cortex (PFC) is correlated with withdrawal behaviour, and the left PFC is linked to approach behaviour. For the reward system, the ventral striatum has a main role in the reward system. It has also been found that perception is connected to the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and ventromedial (Vm) PFC. The study’s findings provide a profound overview of the importance of brain processes such as emotional processes, reward, motivation, cognitive processes, and perception in advertising campaigns such as commercial, social initiative, and public health.

During the decision-making process, consumers notice, inspect, and visually scan different products. External characteristics of a product, such as design, packaging, label, and logo, have been shown to strongly influence how customers perceive, assess, and select a product. Marketers have put a lot of effort into determining the factors that trigger consumers’ visual attention toward products, using traditional research methods, self-reports, or observations. The use of neuroscientific tools to study consumer behavior may improve our understanding of how external characteristics influence consumers’ visual attention. Consumer neuroscience research shows that preferences for a product may already be reflected in brain activity before customers make a final decision. Using electroencephalography (EEG), we investigated whether the design of different wine labeling influences individual preferences, reflected in the neural activity related to visual attention. More specifically, we examined whether the posterior contralateral negativity (PCN) can be used to assess and predict consumers’ preferences for a specific product based on its external characteristics. The PCN is commonly used to estimate attentional selection by focusing on stimulus-side dependent EEG lateralization above parieto-occipital areas. We computed the PCN to assess whether a certain wine label caught participants’ visual attention and additionally by comparing the PCN with behavioral data (wine preferences and reaction times) to determine whether early effects of visual attention could predict participants’ final preferences for a specific label. Our findings indicate that the PCN provides relevant information on visual attention mechanisms for external characteristics, as the view of the four labels modulated PCN amplitude. We hope this study can help researchers and practitioners in examining the effects of external product characteristics on consumer choice by estimating the changes in the EEG that are related to visual attention.

Impulse buying (IB) represents a pivotal subject in consumer psychology. A general agreement on its core elements and their relationship is arguably established. So far, however, there has been little discussion about how to assess impulse purchases, leading to a potential divergence of practise from theory and complexities in cross-study comparability. This systematic literature review investigates the research methods and metrics employed in high-quality literature to evaluate impulse shopping behaviours across different environments, including online, offline, and multichannel settings. Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) criteria, the literature search has been conducted on databases relevant for scientific literature, including Scopus, Web of Science, and ProQuest. Fifty-four articles were included in this systematic review. Findings show the existence of four methods to investigate IB, namely quantitative self-reports, laboratory investigations, fieldwork observations, and qualitative interviews. A comparison of the four methods in terms of fit highlights that self-reports and interviews provide a significant contribution in assessing the cognitive facet of impulse purchasing. Laboratory investigations and fieldwork observation find a better fit with the conative and visceral facets of impulsive buying. Considering the major role of affective charges occurring during impulse shopping, complementary research approaches, and metrics belonging to applied psychophysiology and consumer neuroscience are examined. Three opportunities for future research are discussed, including theory building and refinement, understanding individual differences, and honing behavioural predictions.

Neuroforecasting predicts population-wide choices based on neural data of individuals and can be used, for example, in neuromarketing to estimate campaign successes. To deliver true value, the brain activity metrics should deliver predictive value above and beyond traditional stated preferences. Evidence from movie trailer research has proposed neural synchrony, which compares the similarity of brain responses across participants and has shown to be a promising tool in neuroforecasting for movie popularity. The music industry might also benefit from these increasingly accurate success predictors, but only one study has been forecasting music popularity, using functional magnetic resonance imaging measures. Current research validates the strength of neural synchrony as a predictive measure for popularity of music, making use of electroencephalogram to capture moment-to-moment neural similarity between respondents while they listen to music. Neural synchrony is demonstrated to be a significant predictor for public appreciation on Spotify 3 weeks and 10 months after the release of the albums, especially when combined with the release of a single. On an individual level, other brain measures were shown to relate to individual subjective likeability ratings, including Frontal Alpha Asymmetry and engagement when combined with the factors artist and single release. Our results show the predictive value of brain activity measures outperforms stated preferences. Especially, neural synchrony carries high predictive value for the popularity on Spotify, providing the music industry with an essential asset for efficient decision making and investments, in addition to other practical implications that include neuromarketing and advertising industries.

Social advertising is designed to have an impact on the behavior of the target audience to improve the welfare of both the individuals and the society. The challenge for social marketing is to respond to the exchange process in a social perspective, considering that non-profit actions are perceived as intangible since they deal with services. As donations, the neuroscience applied to consumer behavior is an added value since it offers elements explaining the reactions of the individuals to emotional contents. Understanding the emotions in the moment in which they are felt allows to understand the experimentation of a message by individuals and to understand the possibility that the message can change the behavior of the target audience. The aim of the study is to assess the effectiveness of the Unicef bequest campaign in terms of emotional response, comparing different creative proposals to optimize communication, applying neuromarketing tools to the social area. The experiment involved 70 participants (35 males; 35 females; mean age 68.94 years) and compared two different spots and flyers. The progeny factor was introduced to assess the different impacts of bequests depending on the presence or absence of potential heirs. The neuromarketing tools such as electroencephalography (EEG), skin conductance (SC), and eye-tracker were used for instrumentation purposes. Analysis of the two spots showed statistically significant differences in both the Approach–Withdrawal Index (AWI), for the cognitive involvement, and the SC, the emotional activation indicator, particularly for those not having children (target audience) and in a specific spot that linked the possibility to live after death. The detection of the emotional responses through neuromarketing tools, associated with the non-profit communication, resulted particularly effective and verified an increment of 35% of the donations. Analyses performed with neuromarketing techniques allowed to understand both emotional intensity and cognitive involvement and to understand the best solution, according to the target audience and the aim of Unicef.

In the field of psychology, the merge of decision-theory and neuroscientific methods produces an array of scientifically recognized paradigms. For example, by exploring consumer’s eye-movement behavior, researchers aim to deepen the understanding of how patterns of retinal activation are being meaningfully transformed into visual experiences and connected with specific reactions (e.g., purchase). Notably, eye-movements provide knowledge of one’s homeostatic balance and gatekeep information that shape decisions. Hence, vision science investigates the quality of observed environments determined under various experimental conditions. Moreover, it answers questions on how human process visual stimuli and use gained information for a successful strategy to achieve certain goals. While capturing cognitive states with the support of the eye-trackers progresses at a relatively fast pace in decision-making research, measuring the visual performance of real-life tasks, which require complex cognitive skills, is tentatively translated into clinical experiments. Nevertheless, the potential of the human eye as a highly valuable source of biomarkers has been underlined. In this article, we aim to draw readers attention to decision-making experimental paradigms supported with eye-tracking technology among clinical populations. Such interdisciplinary approach may become an important component that will (i) help in objectively illustrating patient’s models of beliefs and values, (ii) support clinical interventions, and (iii) contribute to health services. It is possible that shortly, eye-movement data from decision-making experiments will grant the scientific community a greater understanding of mechanisms underlining mental states and consumption practices that medical professionals consider as obsessions, disorders or addiction.

Culture strategy is very important for transnational brand marketing. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a promising brain imaging modality for neuromarketing research. In the present study, we used fNIRS to explore the neural correlates of consumers’ purchase decision on different cross-culture marketing strategies. Forty Chinese participants watched transnational brands and products advertised with photographs of the brands’ original culture (the original culture advertisements) and advertised with photographs of Chinese culture (the mixed culture advertisements), respectively. The behavioral results showed that the female participants showed significantly higher purchase rate when watching the original culture advertisements than the mixed culture advertisements, whereas the male participants did not show significant preference between these two types. The fNIRS results further revealed that for the female participants, watching mixed culture advertisements evoked significant positive activation in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and negative activation in the medial prefrontal cortex, which was not found in the male participants. These findings suggest possible cognitive and emotional differences between men and women in purchase decision making toward different cross-culture marketing strategy. The present study also demonstrates the great potential of fNIRS in neuromarketing research.

Recent studies have suggested that event-related brain potential (ERP) can represent consumer preference, and there is consensus that the N200 is the best indicator of consumer preference. Measurement of reference-dependent consumer preference, in turn, requires a reference point, but it remains largely unknown how reference points modulate the preference-related N200. We designed an experiment to investigate how reference points affect the N200 based on classical paradigms. In the single-reference condition, one product was displayed in each trial; in the conjoined-reference condition, a pair of products was displayed simultaneously. Our results showed that in the single-reference condition, low-preference products elicited more negative N200 than high-preference products, replicating previous results, but the N200 could not distinguish between low‐ and high-preference products when viewing two options of similar subjective value in the conjoined-reference condition. These findings suggest that reference points modulate the representation of the N200 on consumer preference. When only viewing one product, participants make a value judgment based on their expectations. However, when viewing two products simultaneously, both their expectation and the alternative product can serve as reference points, and whether the N200 can represent consumer preference depends on which reference point is dominant. In future research, reference points must be controlled when the N200 is used to explore value-related decision-making.

Modern marketers use the latest scientific achievements in their work. One of the new techniques in their practice is called neuromarketing. It involves scanning consumers' brains while viewing ads and consuming products. The article highlights the concept of neuromarketing, its scope, methods and directions of neuromarketing in the modern world, as well as some examples of the use of neuromarketing.

Interest in improving advertisement impact on potential consumers has increased recently. One well-known strategy is to use emotion-based advertisement. In this approach, an emotional link with consumers is created, aiming to enhance the memorization process. In recent years, Neuromarketing techniques have allowed us to obtain more objective information on this process. However, the role of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) in the memorization process using emotional advertisement still needs further research. In this work, we propose the use of two physiological signals, namely, an electrocardiogram (heart rate variability, HRV) and electrodermal activity (EDA), to obtain indices assessing the ANS. We measured these signals in 43 subjects during the observation of six different spots, each conveying a different emotion (rational, disgust, anger, surprise, and sadness). After observing the spots, subjects were asked to answer a questionnaire to measure the spontaneous and induced recall. We propose the use of a statistical data-driven model based on Partial Least Squares-Path Modeling (PSL-PM), which allows us to incorporate contextual knowledge by defining a relational graph of unobservable variables (latent variables, LV), which are, in turn, estimated by measured variables (indices of the ANS). We defined four LVs, namely, sympathetic, vagal, ANS, and recall. Sympathetic and vagal are connected to the ANS, the latter being a measure of recall, estimated from a questionnaire. The model is then fitted to the data. Results showed that vagal activity (described by HRV indices) is the most critical factor to describe ANS activity; they are inversely related except for the spot, which is mainly rational. The model captured a moderate-to-high variability of ANS behavior, ranging from 38% up to 64% of the explained variance of the ANS. However, it can explain at most 11% of the recall score of the subjects. The proposed approach allows for the easy inclusion of more physiological measurements and provides an easy-to-interpret model of the ANS response to emotional advertisement.

This study examines how advertising material and brands related to organizational communication are perceived by people with Asperger syndrome, a form of autism. The main objective of the study was to understand whether the perception of advertising differs between individuals with AS and a neurotypical population. Neuromarketing techniques were used to examine two key variables, attention and emotion, which were also measured by physiological and biometric variables. The results were compared with those of a control group from a neurotypical population; i.e., participants who had not been diagnosed with any type of developmental disorder. Commercial advertisements were the preferred material used in this research although social-themed advertisements were also included, some produced by commercial companies and others by institutional advertisers (NGOs and foundations). Qualitative techniques were also used to explain the observed phenomena. Data revealed significant differences between the two groups in their perception of advertising and organizational communication with respect to attention and emotion variables.

Purpose driven companies have developed their corporate culture with a commitment to stakeholders, Sustainable Development Goals, and social responsibility, prioritizing the management of organizational intangibles over capital. The overall objective of this research is to gain knowledge regarding the attention and emotional intensity registered by young Spanish university students when visualizing corporate purpose versus corporate visual identity, as well as the image of the Chairman of the main Spanish companies quoted on the IBEX 35. The techniques of eye tracking and galvanic skin response have been used with 31 Spanish university students. The results suggest that brands with the highest brand equity in the Interbrand (2019) ranking are also the ones that receive the highest levels of attention and emotional arousal, and that a well-formulated corporate purpose is not enough to satisfy the public if company credibility is low due to previous perceptions of an organization.

Neuromarketing has aroused great interest in scientific research about consumer behavior and, consequently, in the advertising industry, which is searching for an alternative to traditional techniques for measuring efficacy. However, despite its development in the academic world, in the professional sector, its use is still very limited. The aim of this work was to find out the perception of advertising professionals as regards neuromarketing techniques for identifying its advantages and disadvantages compared to other research techniques, as well as the reasons why the use of neuromarketing is so much lower than expected in the Spanish market. The technique chosen for data gathering was the semi-structured interview, which made it possible to go into more depth with the subjects that came up. The interview, after a pre-selection of 100 professionals who matched the set criteria, was carried out individually, face-to-face, with a sample of 30 people with considerable professional experience in the field of marketing, sales communication, and market research; all of them belonged to leading companies from the sector. Once the information had been categorized into units with common themes, the results obtained were interpreted to explain how neuromarketing techniques are being used in the field of advertising. The results obtained led us to the conclusion that, even though neuromarketing provides more objective data and it is closer to what really happens to consumers when they are exposed to an advertising message, the ignorance of its true possibilities, the inability of suppliers of these techniques to transmit the value they add to research, its complexity, its high cost and time requirements explain why it has had scarce use in advertising research. The results revealed the real reasons for the rejection of neuromarketing techniques which, in turn, will make it possible to introduce both technological and formative solutions, allowing it to be incorporated into future research designs.

Gastronomic experiences offer a set of stimuli that affect the customer’s perception of chef-designed food. This empirical study aims to analyze the influence on the consumer, at a cerebral level, of the stimuli characteristic of a high-level gastronomic experience, in a Michelin starred restaurant. The presentation by the waiter or chef, the plate design, the dish served, the taste of food, interaction or moment in which the food is served are the variables analyzed. Through the use of neuromarketing techniques – galvanic skin response to register emotional arousal, eye tracking to identify where consumers look, and electroencephalography to interpret emotional reactions – combined with qualitative research technique (In-depth interviews with all consumers), in order to know the natural and suggested memories, the objective of this research is to determine the emotional impact of the variables analyzed against the actual taste of food, obtaining conclusions about each variable in overall experience and allowing the authors to propose a model of order design of dishes, designed by the chef, based on emotions and thereby achieving greater efficiency in results of the experience and the memory of it. Results indicate a favorable influence on emotions when the chef presents the food. Likewise, dishes with special presentation have a greater influence at the level of interest than conventional dishes. It is important to highlight that the levels of emotion and attention fall after the midway point of the experience, due to the duration of the experience. Therefore, the dishes do not have the same emotional impact, despite being as special as at the beginning of the experience.

This research work comes in response to the question of which aspects are more relevant for consumers when purchasing educational toys as opposed to other toys that are focused solely on leisure. This empirical research focuses on an educational toy distributed in Spain by the Educa brand (Conector family, reference “I learn English”), which is the product best-selling product of its brand in this area, and analyses how consumers make decisions concerning this product in relation to other products designed by competitors. The research looks into customer reactions while looking at these products, measuring brain activity generated by different aspects of product design and its influence on choice. The aim of the present study was to propose a model that optimizes the design of educational toy packaging. Through the use of neuromarketing techniques –attention through eye tracking, and emotion using galvanic skin response– as well as qualitative research techniques, the objective of this research is to determine the motivations in the processes of buying educational toys. The packaging design elements analyzed are brand, product family, toy name, recommended age, game image, number of questions/topics, and additional texts. The results suggest that the most important elements are the graphic details of the packaging, obtaining a perception of a higher educational level as more questions are addressed by the game. The simultaneous combination of qualitative techniques monitored with galvanic skin response (neuro-qualitative study) allows additional conclusions to be aligned with the end user of the product, including a prominent social component when the product is purchased as a gift for a third party.

Currently, there is an important debate on how social networks have affected relations between organizations and their audiences: originally complementary –since organizations had full control over the messages that they sent to users, who were mere consumers of information–, they are now symmetric –since users produce and disseminate information about organizations on a global scale through social media–. Therefore, one of the main concerns of organizations when investing in social networks is to connect with their target audience, to have virality, greater visibility and scope. Likewise, neuromarketing is gaining significant importance when it comes to predicting user behavior through biometric measurements, so it can be an essential tool for developing content that engages organizations and their audiences. The main objective of this work is to conduct a theoretical review of the main scientific research on the effectiveness of neuromarketing as a tool to improve the emotional connection between organizations and users in social networks. Thus, the scientific literature on the object under study available on the Web Of Science has been extensively reviewed. The results of the analysis of the main researches in this field reveal the importance of neuromarketing: some of them agree that the communicative effectiveness between organizations and audiences in social networks depends more on sociology and psychology than on technology itself. Neuromarketing has also allowed to demonstrate the relevance of the so-called social influence in social networks: users tend to imitate the behaviors of others, under the premise that these actions reflect the appropriate procedure. That is, when a user sees that others in their environment comment or share a post, they tend to replicate that action in order to avoid the fear of being the only one who behaves differently.

Instagram is the fastest growing social network and has an audience that shares lifestyles related to their interest in beauty and fashion. However, the exposure of adolescents to images that promote the slender beauty ideal can lead to body dissatisfaction, as they place a lot of importance on the likes and comments they receive regarding the comparison of their appearance with that of other users. The popularity of influencers and their opinion leadership has resulted in the convergence of a given body image with the promotion of products and brands. Through the use of neuromarketing techniques –attention through eye tracking, and emotion using galvanic skin response–, the objective of this research is to determine the cognitive perception that Spanish adolescents and young people have of the stimuli transmitted by influencers on Instagram, surpassing classic content analysis of social networks and offering the innovative technique of registering unconscious reactions of the audience, both toward the body image as well as toward the brands promoted by influencers who are akin to the audience. The results suggest that adolescents place greater attention and emotional intensity on the nude body appeal of influencers compared to young adults, and show only scarce interest in brands.

This research work comes in response to the question of which aspects are more relevant for consumers when purchasing educational toys as opposed to other toys that are focused solely on leisure. This empirical research focuses on an educational toy distributed in Spain by the Educa brand (Conector family, reference "I learn English"), which is the product best-selling product of its brand in this area, and analyses how consumers make decisions concerning this product in relation to other products designed by competitors. The research looks into customer reactions while looking at these products, measuring brain activity generated by different aspects of product design and its influence on choice. The aim of the present study was to propose a model that optimizes the design of educational toy packaging. Through the use of neuromarketing techniques –attention through eye tracking, and emotion using galvanic skin response– as well as qualitative research techniques, the objective of this research is to determine the motivations in the processes of buying educational toys. The packaging design elements analyzed are brand, product family, toy name, recommended age, game image, number of questions/topics, and additional texts. The results suggest that the most important elements are the graphic details of the packaging, obtaining a perception of a higher educational level as more questions are addressed by the game. The simultaneous combination of qualitative techniques monitored with galvanic skin response (neuro-qualitative study) allows additional conclusions to be aligned with the end user of the product, including a prominent social component when the product is purchased as a gift for a third party. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gastronomic experiences offer a set of stimuli that affect the customer's perception of chef-designed food. This empirical study aims to analyze the influence on the consumer, at a cerebral level, of the stimuli characteristic of a high-level gastronomic experience, in a Michelin starred restaurant. The presentation by the waiter or chef, the plate design, the dish served, the taste of food, interaction or moment in which the food is served are the variables analyzed. Through the use of neuromarketing techniques – galvanic skin response to register emotional arousal, eye tracking to identify where consumers look, and electroencephalography to interpret emotional reactions – combined with qualitative research technique (In-depth interviews with all consumers), in order to know the natural and suggested memories, the objective of this research is to determine the emotional impact of the variables analyzed against the actual taste of food, obtaining conclusions about each variable in overall experience and allowing the authors to propose a model of order design of dishes, designed by the chef, based on emotions and thereby achieving greater efficiency in results of the experience and the memory of it. Results indicate a favorable influence on emotions when the chef presents the food. Likewise, dishes with special presentation have a greater influence at the level of interest than conventional dishes. It is important to highlight that the levels of emotion and attention fall after the midway point of the experience, due to the duration of the experience. Therefore, the dishes do not have the same emotional impact, despite being as special as at the beginning of the experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the evolution of cinema since its initial paradigms to the present-day experiments where film and neuroscience have joined to give birth to a new form of art - the 'scientific art' of neurocinematics. It looks at the inter- and multidisciplinary exchange between psychology, cognitive sciences, film, neuroscience and neuromarketing, their instruments of research and their input in the creation of neurocinema. The main argument of this article is that neurocinema dismisses classical notions of realism, authorship, film language and signification, to become an instrument of probing and modelling the human mind, emotional response, and behaviour according to specific objectives. In this context, the paper surveys studies highlighting the main cognitive processes involved in film viewing, the benefits and disadvantages of employing neuroimaging techniques in filmmaking, as well as the effects of neurocinematics on spectator's perception, cognition and emotion triggered in the complex dialogical interaction between films and audiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neuromarketing objective is to understand the functioning of the human decision-making of the brain. The first neuromarketing research was performed by Read Montague in 2003 and Harper Collins added the word neuromarketing to its dictionary in 2005. The most promising way to perform neuromarketing studies are based on fMRI. The fMRI modality is based on using an MRI scanner to image the change of blood flow in the brain. However, participants cannot stay for long inside the fMRI tube and thus it is necessary to improve on the methodology to shorten the research time. One answer to the problem is the conjoint analysis, that short the time and resulting more attributes to analyze products and services. Conjoint tasks may be viewed as multiattribute decision problems, and conjoint analysis is partly a multiattribute model for measuring consumer attitudes and preferences. Connected conjoint fMRI is very efficient way to analyze neuromarketing studies.

IMPULSE is a novel method for detecting affective responses to dynamic audiovisual content. It is an implicit reaction time test that is carried out while an audiovisual clip (e.g., a television commercial) plays in the background and measures feelings that are congruent or incongruent with the content of the clip. The results of three experiments illustrate the following four advantages of IMPULSE over self-reported and biometric methods: (1) being less susceptible to typical confounds associated with explicit measures, (2) being easier to measure deep-seated and often nonconscious emotions, (3) being better able to detect a broad range of emotions and feelings, and (4) being more efficient to implement as an online method.

Application and significance of neuroscience and its related techniques to comprehend and analyse consumer behaviour and psychology have recently attracted the interest of researchers and practitioners. In doing so, models of consumer choice and communication effects that were originally conceived during a non-neuroscience psychology era should now be challenged with the recent and plentiful advances that neurobiology has made in reshaping our understanding of the human mind and decision-making processes. This study aims at providing an update of exactly these updates, and to use this novel understanding to challenge a dominating category of consumer choice and communication effects, going under the headings such as “response hierarchy models”. By using examples of these models, we will demonstrate that even the basic assumptions in these models need to be reconsidered, and that the overall tenants of the models are equally problematic. Based on our overall understanding and an in-depth analysis of the modern neurobiological basis of decision-making in humans, it can be concluded that AIDA model is not applicable and substantially problematic. Therefore, it can be asserted that a reframing of the model needs to encompass both conscious and unconscious streams of action. Consequently, the model shall consider massively parallel systems, where A, I, D and A have two parallel systems, a conscious and an unconscious. The conscious system must only occur for certain level of unconscious process, whereas unconscious processes can occur without the necessity of consciousness. The reframed model suggested in this study can be the interest of both scholars and practitioners.