Neuromarketing: Positive and Negative side of Neuromarketing in Marketing Research and

Marketing Strategies or Activities towards Consumers

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Module title: INDEPENDENT STUDY MODULE

Module number: PREM 6004

Assignment details: Assignment 1: Independent Study Module - Neuromarketing: The

Positive and Negative side of Neuromarketing in Marketing Research and Marketing
Strategies or Activities towards Consumers

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Neuromarketing: Positive and Negative side of Neuromarketing in Marketing Research and
Marketing Strategies or Activities towards Consumers

Abstract

This paper examines the positive and negative sides of neuromarketing in marketing

research and marketing strategies or activities. It aims to analyse the consumers’

opinion regarding the positive and negative sides of neuromarketing research and

marketing strategies or activities on them. The data collected for this research was

gathered from secondary research from the main database, Business Source

Complete. The findings from this research show that consumers believe

neuromarketing has a positive effect more than negative when applying it to society

and if the research could help marketer improve their marketing strategies and

activities but feel manipulated if it is being used by profit companies. Despite

supporting the neuromarketing research, consumers are also concerned with their

health issues regarding the side effects of neuromarketing tools. This finding

contributes to the understanding that neuromarketing does have a benefit that

outweighs the harm.

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Neuromarketing: Positive and Negative side of Neuromarketing in Marketing Research and
Marketing Strategies or Activities towards Consumers

Table of Contents

Abstract
1. Introduction 4
1.1 Research Questions 4
1.2 Research Objectives 5
2. Literature Review 6
2.1 What is Neuromarketing? 6
2.2 Neuromarketing tools and techniques 8
2.3 Neuromarketing Ethics 10
3. Methodology 12
3.1 Research question
3.2 Research methods for data collection
3.3 Research methods for data analysis
3.4 Evaluation of research method
4. Main research 13
4.1 Comparison of consumer opinion of neuromarketing 13
4.2 Analysis of neuromarketing tools and its side effects 18
5. Limitation 19
6. Further Research 20
7. Conclusion 20
8. References/Bibliography 21

1. Introduction

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Neuromarketing: Positive and Negative side of Neuromarketing in Marketing Research and
Marketing Strategies or Activities towards Consumers

For centuries, marketers have tried to discover what is inside consumers’

minds, to understand better what factors have caused changes in their behaviour

and what influences their actions (Shahriari et al., 2019). Meanwhile, using a

traditional method (surveys, interviews, and focus groups), could not help marketers

find a profound answer. In 2002, professor Ale Smidts introduced the

neuromarketing term to the world, and the demand for neuromarketing among

academics and companies have shown a significant increase (Dijana, 2016). In

addition, as of 2017 alone, there are ‘60 published papers related to neuro-marketing

and about 111 articles of neuro-marketing lining with marketing strategies like

product and pricing’ (Shahriari et al., 2019). This indicates how the organisation

implements it and makes it cost-effective for every marketing activities. However,

despite its benefits, many studies question its drawback and ethics (Dijana, 2016). 

Research question:

This study will focus on evaluating the advantages and disadvantages of

neuromarketing in marketing research and marketing strategies or activities. In this

paper, the term neuromarketing is used to refer to a field of marketing research that

studies how peoples’ brains respond to advertising stimuli using neuroscience tools

(Genco, Pohlmann and Steidl, 2013) and it is the intersection of three disciplines i.e.,

marketing, market research, psychology and brain science (Agarwal, 2015).

The study aims to analyse whether neuromarketing brings more gain or

detriment to marketing research and marketing strategies or activities. This report

has been organised the following way: Firstly, a literature review about what is

neuromarketing and the tools will be presented. Secondly, a methodology section

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Neuromarketing: Positive and Negative side of Neuromarketing in Marketing Research and
Marketing Strategies or Activities towards Consumers

will explain the research method used in this study. Thirdly the primary research will

focus on consumers opinion regarding neuromarketing research and the side effects

of neuromarketing tools. Finally, a conclusion will be drawn about neuromarketing

whether or not it brings more usefulness or flaws.

Research objective:

Hypothesis

H1 consumers or subjects believe neuromarketing give more benefit than harm

H2 consumers or subjects believe neuromarketing give more harm than benefit

H3 consumers or subjects believe the neuromarketing tools used is safe and does

not

affect their health

H4 consumers or subjects is worried with the neuromarketing tools used will have a

negative effect on their health

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2. Literature review

This literature review is organised into three sections. It begins by focusing on

understanding the neuromarketing, neuromarketing tools and then the ethics.

2.1 What is Neuromarketing?

The first person who combines neuroscience with the marketing term is the

economist’s name Jerry Zaltman (Shahriari, 2019). Since then it has attracted the

attention and …‘many theoreticians and practitioners contributed to the construction

of this relatively new research method through their work’ for many years

(Tichindelean, 2019). This term was first introduced by a German professor, Ale

Smidts in 2002 as ‘the applied extension of neuroscience (the study of the cerebral

mechanism)’ (Lim, 2018), that uses neuroscientific tools and techniques to analyse

consumer’s behaviour regarding markets and marketing exchanges in various

markets (Dijana, 2016). Based on this definition, Lim highlights that the information

received from the neuromarketing tools contribute towards …‘the development and

advancement of marketing theory and the planning and implementation of marketing

strategies,’ (2018) with (e.g., to make a sale) not only use for commercial to improve

their marketing strategies and effectively design marketing activities (Tichindelean,

2019) but it also provide information regarding consumer’s role and activities in inter-

organisational relationships to improve the social impact (Stanton, Sinnot-Armstrong

and Huettel, 2017) or to ‘influence behaviour for a social good,’ (Lim, 2018).

Tichindelean states that ‘while traditional marketing research and consumer

research methods can explore or demonstrated observations, preferences and

behaviours, the mind of the consumer and the processing leading to this behaviour

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Marketing Strategies or Activities towards Consumers

remain unknown’ (2019). This is where neuromarketing starts to innovate in

understanding the consumer. ‘Neuromarketing research appears to be the ace up

the sleeve of marketers’ (Tichindelean, 2019) and act as an additional tool to the

traditional market research as it offers insights of unconscious information through

the neural process (neuromarketing tools) …‘without asking people directly for their

thoughts, feelings, memories, evaluations, or decision-making strategies’ (Lim, 2018)

which help marketers to observe the drivers of consumer’s choice and their

behavioural responses that led to decision making that they are unaware of and

‘cannot be detected by traditional techniques such as focus groups, interviews, and

questionnaires’ (Dijana, 2016) as consumer hardly able to say what they want (Lim,

2018). This enables marketers to get the right answers, understand the consumers

better, and improve their marketing activities or strategies through consumers'

cognitive response towards stimuli in neuromarketing research (Dijana, 2016;

Tichindelean, 2019).

Neuromarketing has the potential to understand the unconscious drivers of

choice by using the primal brain at the optimal (Steidl, 2016). Studies show that most

consumers make a purchase, influenced by 90% of the unconscious mind rather

than the conscious mind (Steidl, 2018). Therefore, it is difficult to ignore the fact of

the advantages of neuromarketing over the traditional market research which, if

correctly implemented either for any marketing activities such as advertising and

promotion could help organisations to bring more profit (Morin and Renvoise, 2018).

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2.2 Neuromarketing tools and techniques

According to Harrell, neuromarketing tools are the ‘measurement of

physiological and neuronal signals to gain insight into customers' motivations,

preferences, and decisions which could help with the development of marketing

strategies or activities (2019). By using neuromarketing tools, researchers can

…’measure and record neural activity inside and outside of the consumer’s brain’

(Lim, 2018). For example, ‘activation of brain areas, such as the amygdala and

prefrontal cortex and others types of neural reflexes external brain, for instance eye

and facial muscle movements, heart activity, and sweat towards the brand, product

or services being research)’ (Lim, 2018), that ‘indirectly interrelated with specific

types of learned responses, such as the interaction of specific categories of

cognitions (e.g., awareness, interest), emotions (e.g., positive and negative

emotions), and choices (e.g., agents, suppliers)’ (Lim, 2018). These observations

allow marketers to study the ‘cognitive, emotional, and real response of consumers

to marketing stimuli,’ (Tichindelean, 2019).

Neuromarketing techniques consist of Neurometrics (is the brain-based

measurement techniques that focus on blood flow and brain cell activity) and

Biometrics (the measurement techniques that measure the body's reaction towards

stimuli) (Ulman, Cakar, and Gokcen, 2015). Table 1 and figure 1 below show the

comparison of these methods.

Biometrics tools need to complement together with Neurometric or traditional

market research to get an accurate result. This is because the tools like ‘pulse,

breathing rate, eyeball movement, eye blinking, galvanic skin response (GSR), facial

muscle movements, and whole-body movements’ (Tichindelean, 2019), have some

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limitations and depend on participant’s physical features, condition, and reaction. For

example, if the subject studied state is tired, not in a good health condition, mood,

and other external

Figure 1: Neuroscientific methods to study consumer insights (Lim, 2018).

Biometrics Neurometrics
- A neuroscientific method ‘that - A neuroscientific method ‘that
‘record neural activity outside the ‘record neural activity inside the
brain’ (Lim, 2018) brain’ (Lim, 2018)
Cost of obtaining data Low High
Accessibility High Low
Ease of use High Low

Table 1: Neurom neuromarketing ethics arketing techniques (Genco, Pohlmann and

Steidl, 2013, Lim,2018)

conditions, this will influence the information gathered. Another limitation of

Biometrics is, it is unable to study emotions and cognitive processes (Wrona, 2014).

For example, according to Tichindelean, a ‘Biometric reaction is not always

correlated with a cognitive response at the conscious or subconscious level (a

person in a coma may react to hands clapping)’ (2019). Therefore, ‘Biometrics must

be used together with Neurometric or as an additional source to support traditional

marketing research in ‘confirming the results obtained utilizing an objective research

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Neuromarketing: Positive and Negative side of Neuromarketing in Marketing Research and
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method such as EEG’ (Tichindelean, 2019) or survey, as it did not yield reliable

information if used alone’ (Wrona, 2014).

2.3 Neuromarketing ethics

The ‘term ethics has several meanings. Generally, ethics means a set of codes of

conduct that guide ethical behaviour’ (Tichindelean, 2019). According to Kant’s

conception of ethics, ethics means the ‘duties cannot be associated with an entity

own and interest and expressed in financial rewards,’ (Tichindelean, 2019).

Meanwhile, Tichindelean defines neuromarketing ethics as a ‘set of moral standards,

judgments and codes applied in the field of marketing’ (2019) which aim to conduct

neuromarketing research on the subjects (consumer) without harming their brain or

body (Tichindelean, 2019).

There are a few issues raised for years regarding the unethical practices done by

the company that does neuromarketing research. Some issues like confidentiality

and privacy. The result from the research will reveal a lot about the subjects health

condition and personal information, which receive the permission from the subject

undergoing the research but it still have the possibilities that…‘it may be misused

and violate ethics codes of conduct’ (Isa, Mansor, and Razali, 2019). Another issue

is manipulating consumer decisions, which favour the brand. For example, ‘through

neuromarketing, Microsoft can know their customers’ preferences and behaviors and

thus, can provide more profitable services’ (Isa, Mansor, and Razali, 2019) or

Google who use neuromarketing to influence the consumers to view the

advertisement on their site (Sieber, 2019).

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Marketing Strategies or Activities towards Consumers

Therefore, in considering the safety and risk of subjects and company, Murphy et

al. (2008) propose rules and guidelines which Neuromarketing Science and

Business Association (NMBSA) later declared as ethical code for any parties

involved with neuromarketing to adhere to. Murphy et. al., (2008) proposed the five

dimensions of the ethics framework ‘to be pursued and respected in neuromarketing

practice’ (Tichindelean, 2019), to prevent the ethical problems between the subject

and companies and befits the duties of the researchers. They are:

 Keeping the safety of subjects that involve with the research

 Keeping the niche populations or market segments from the susceptible

exploitation

 Offers a translucent statement for each of marketing research like the goals,

potential hazards, and gains

 Delivers to media a precise and fair representation of the methods and results

 Guarantee to provide an internal and external validity

(Murphy et al., 2008).

3. Methodology

3.1 Research question

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Neuromarketing: Positive and Negative side of Neuromarketing in Marketing Research and
Marketing Strategies or Activities towards Consumers

The research question was chosen to analyse the positive and negative impact of

neuromarketing in market research and marketing activities.

3.2 Research methods for data collection

The data for this research was gathered from the Oxford Brookes University library

using the main search terms “neuromarketing”, “side effect”, “market research”,

“benefit of neuromarketing”, “negative side of neuromarketing”, “neuromarketing

tools” “neuroethics” and “neuromarketing methods”. The data was not limited to the

last five years because most of the important findings of neuromarketing took place

in the last five years but were limited to studies about market research,

neuromarketing, side effects, neuromarketing tools, and neuromarketing ethics only.

3.3 Research methods for data analysis

The data was analysed to apply theory to critical examples through explanation

building (qualitative research methods) of the possibility of adverse side overweighs

the usefulness of neuromarketing in marketing activities and market research.

3.4 Evaluation of research methods

The research method is useful, reliable, relevant, and accurate in presenting both

sides (positive and negative) of the neuromarketing use in market research and

marketing activities. The method was a useful means to gather data about how

neuromarketing can create harm or provide benefits in marketing activities and

market research studies. The table is created to illustrate the data about the

research finding.

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 Neuromarketing: Positive and Negative side of Neuromarketing in Marketing Research and Marketing Strategies or Activities towards
Consumers

4. Main research

This section is structured of two tables that analyse the consumer’s opinion regarding neuromarketing application in

marketing research and marketing strategies or activities. The findings are taken from the past research between 2004 to 2019 to

analyse the consumers' opinions (Table 1) regarding neuromarketing on its positivity or negativity. Then on table 2 is constructed

based on consumer opinion in table 1 about the side effects of neuromarketing tools that are being used to conduct the studies.

The result from both findings is present in the table format and the result is discussed whether it illustrates any of the research

objective hypotheses.

4.1 Comparison of consumers’ opinion of neuromarketing

Good Bad
Values of neuromarketing research

The non-profit company Profit based company

Consumer responses are positive and believe
neuromarketing is ethical when the research is
conducted by a Non-Profit organisation (NPO) regarding
social concern (Tichindelean, 2019). E.g., Research by
Flores et.al, on 324 consumers, received 80% positive
and ethical responses for research that aimed at
reducing alcohol consumption and it is unethical to not
use these techniques (2014).
General
- Consumer responses are negative and believe neuromarketing is unethical when
the research is conducted by a Profit organisation regarding increased sales or
profit (Tichindelean, 2019). E.g., Research by Flores et.al, on 324 consumers'
response is 60% favourable but still thinks it is negative, immoral, unethical toward
profit-based companies when they conduct the research to increase their beer
sales and it is ethical for them to withdraw the research (2014).
General
- Consumer less recognise the neuromarketing’s value for-profit companies
(Tichindelean, 2019)

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 Neuromarketing: Positive and Negative side of Neuromarketing in Marketing Research and Marketing Strategies or Activities towards
- Consumers believe the use of neuromarketing for
marketing purposes is ethical in improving their
marketing activities or strategies (Flores, Baruca, and
Saldivar,2014).
- Consumers recognize neuromarketing’s values in
intensifying the company-consumer relationship only
when it is giving a great benefit to society. E.g.,
research that benefits the consumer and manipulates
them ‘in a positive sense like to increase the level of
education, instigate a healthy lifestyle, or reduce
harmful consumption and behaviours’ (Tichindelean,
2019).
Neuromarketing research Ethical conduct
Consumers feel that neuromarketing research forgo by profit companies is more ethical and accommodated with better facilities than the non-
profit organisation (NPO) (Tichindelean, 2019).
Neuromarketing tools - The attitude of the user Negative
towards neuromarketing methods
Positive
- Some subjects feel positive and excited with the tool
used, oftentimes will take the ‘pictures during the
study or want to find out if their brain is okay’
(Tichindelean, 2019).
Consumers
- Consumers feel that they are being used and react negatively towards the
companies who employ it (Flores, Baruca, and Saldivar,2014). They believe the
deceptive ads or campaign is not helping the consumer to make a choice rather
than manipulating their brain into buying something they do not need and are
going to regret later (Conick, 2018).
- Consumers may not be as enthusiastic as marketers or companies depending
on their understanding of the reason and how companies use neuromarketing
(Flores, Baruca, and Saldivar,2014).
- Consumers feel unjust when the research is about marketing campaigns as it
will lead customer’s minds to make a meaningless decision in favour of some
brand (Flores, Baruca, and Saldivar,2014). They claimed ‘neuromarketers are
exploiting people to “sell us crap we don’t need” and creating unhealthy and
irresponsible addictions and cravings’ (Conick, 2018).
- Violation of right: Consumer fear the company will misuse their information and
maybe sell to a third party (Nadanyiova, 2017)
- Consumer perspective is ‘negative regarding the willingness of, ethical concern,
health, and risky, and ‘intrinsic and extrinsic motivation for participating in
neuromarketing studies’ (Lim, 2018). Some subjects feel unprepared and scared’
(Tichindelean, 2019).
- Privacy issues: Consumers feel the companies violated their privacy and run the
test without their consent. E.g., some companies start to use eye-tracking on
consumer devices i.e., laptops, mobile phones and deliver a personal ad targeted
based on consumer past research (Conick,2018) without their consent. Another
example Facebook manipulated ‘700,000 users’ mood states in 2012 by altering
their newsfeeds without informing them’ (Tichindelean, 2019).
- Non-profit companies are lacking in neuromarketing tools than profit companies
(Harrell, 2019)
- ‘Lack of transparency in what’s happening in neuroscience labs’ especially major
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Neuromarketing: Positive and Negative side of Neuromarketing in Marketing Research and Marketing Strategies or Activities towards
Consumers

giant companies like Facebook, Google, and Amazon’ (Harrel, 2019).

- Some methods like ‘fMRI and EEG will be challenged and cause some of the
subjects to suffer claustrophobia when entering the large, expensive, and non-
portable scanning machine’ (Dijana, 2016).
- Brain scanning method raises some ethical issues, e.g., if during the test, the
researcher found a medical condition (e.g., tumor), should they inform them?
(Dijana, 2016).
- The possibility of the unacceptable condition of brain imaging tools that infringe
personal privacy (The Lancet Neurology,2004).
Table 2: Consumer’s (The subjects) opinion of neuromarketing

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Neuromarketing: Positive and Negative side of Neuromarketing in Marketing Research and
Marketing Strategies or Activities towards Consumers

Based on studies on consumer’s opinions regarding neuromarketing in table

2, it shows an evidenced of hypothesis H1, that consumers or subjects believe

neuromarketing gives more benefit than harm. They believe and recognize the value

of neuromarketing that brings more benefits especially when the Non-Profit

Organisation (NPO) research with the aim of social concern and the profit company,

who use it to improve their marketing activities and strategies and to increase the

consumer-company relationship in sense of education, health, and prevention.

However, consumers do feel that the neuromarketing research objectives that are

used by profit companies with the company concern of increasing profit or sales are

unethical, manipulated, and adjusted as they are being used in favour of the

company in buying behaviour. Due to this, Antoniak criticizes that ‘neuromarketing

raises questions concerning human rights, namely the right to cognitive liberty,

mental privacy, mental integrity and psychological continuity’ (2020) and

manipulating consumer’ emotion i.e. via advertising (Zafrilla, 2017). This criticism

supported by Stanton, Sinnot-Armstrong, and Huettel, that despite the benefit of

neuromarketing overweighs the disadvantages, the issues of ‘unethical research

practices, unethical applications of technology, and manipulations of consumers’

(2017) are still being raised and questions towards the company that practices

neuromarketing and the fear have not yet subsided.

Additionally, consumers tend to rank poorly towards the profit companies who

are using neuromarketing to manipulate them as they fear … ‘the risk of

manipulation by commercials or mind-control' (Murphy et. al, 2008), and a ‘modern

society’s re-enslavement’ (Sieber, 2019). Moreover, according to Bakardjieva and

Kimmel (2017) as cite from the best selling book The Hidden Persuaders, by Vance

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Marketing Strategies or Activities towards Consumers

Packard’s (1957), neuromarketing ‘brainwash consumers into desiring and

purchasing products that they do not want or need,' as the companies have an

advantage in knowledge of consumer’s mind over the consumer itself, which ‘shift

the marketplace from the buyer side to the seller side’ (Ulman, Cakar, and Gokcen,

2015). For example, some companies use test ads with neuromarketing to create

‘more powerful advertisements can be harmful if they create new desires for

products that are inferior or that the consumer does not need’ (Stanton, Sinnot-

Armstrong and Huettel, 2017), or when Facebook conduct a neuromarketing study

that intentionally manipulated nearly 700,000 users’ mood states without users’

consent seem unethical and violate consumer choice and decision making (Stanton,

Sinnot-Armstrong and Huettel, 2017).

In other studies by Nill and Schibrowsky (2007) as cited by Stanton, Sinnot-

Armstrong, and Huettel (2017) report contrast ideas that some fears regarding the

fear of neuromarketing ethic raise is unrealistic like neuromarketing try to control

consumer brain ‘buy button’ (consumer choice) which are seen as violation rights of

consumer’s privacy. But the truth is according to Sinnot-Armstrong and Huettel the

neuromarketing studies result is based on a generalization of consumer’s reaction

towards stimuli and it is probabilistic and not deterministic which consumer still can

choose to continue purchasing the item or stop it (2017). Furthermore, Nadanyiova

(2017) reported that the basic common goals of neuromarketing research are to help

the consumer make a reason of why they choose the brand or product but still, as a

human, consumer have a sense and brain and make a decision based on what they

truly want and not merely manipulated by neuromarketing as the foundation of

neuromarketing is ‘the application of neuroscience to solve the problems of

marketing’ (Agarwal, 2015), and to better understand consumer behaviour.

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4.2 Analysis of neuromarketing tools and its side effects

Neuromarketing tools Side effects

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) ‘The low temporal resolution caused a
TMS is ‘a non-invasive technique that excites nerve cells in problem in getting an accurate reading.
It also will harm users as it releases
definite areas in the brain. Using a plastic case that contains an the radiation' (Robertson, Voegtlin and
electromagnet, it sends electromagnetic signals through the scalp Maak, 2017; Lim, 2018).
and skull and into specific brain areas’ (Lim, 2018).
Eye Tracking (eye movement) (ET) ‘An ethical issue is whether
ET is a non-invasive method’ (Lim, 2018) that provides an ‘actual subjects discern that they are
record of visual attention location is aimed and demonstrations partaking in a marketing study
how pupil dilation changes’ (Cerci and Koyluoglu, 2020). and not in a scientific one’
(Dijana, 2016).
Facial Electromyography (fEMG/EMG) A side effect on subject which
fEMG is ‘a non-invasive technique that’ (Lim, 2018) measures can alter their natural
and records facial ‘micro-muscle movements by identifying and expressions (Lim, 2018).
magnifying small electrical stimuli created by muscle fibres when
they meet tiny exterior electrodes from the EMG equipment’
(Morin and Renvoise, 2018).

Metabolic: Positron emission tomography (PET) A possible radioactive effect on

PET is ‘a non-invasive technique for measuring and recording subjects’ health, so ‘its
(Lim, 2018). This metabolic-physiological method, measure two submission to vigorous subjects
high-energy gamma quanta released by the radioactive falloff of a and for nonclinical experiments
positron-emitting radionuclide that is presented into the body over is restricted’ (Lim, 2018).
a biologically active molecule before test subjects are visible to
the marketing stimuli under study’ (Tommi, 2020).

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and EEG A strong magnetic field can
FMRI is ‘a non-invasive technique that used the most for brain have negative side effects on
scan’ studies’ (Lim, 2018) that measures the richness of oxygen the participant (Morin and
in the consumers’ brain to show an active part and energy use by Renvoise, 2018)
the brain cells. ‘It uses magnetic and radio waves to create brain
images’ (Dijana, 2016). ‘It traces blood oxygenation in the brain
and manipulates the magnetic properties of oxygenated and
deoxygenated blood, which connects with the core neuronal
activity’ (Lim,2018).

FMRI ‘uses magnetic waves to study the activation of different

areas in the brain during the presence of the marketing stimulus’
(Tichindelean, 2019).

Based on table 1, some consumers raise a concern about the safety of tools used for

studies. Thus, table 2 is constructed to oversee the potential side effects of the

neuromarketing tools.

Table 3 Neuromarketing tools and their side effect on consumer (subjects)

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 Neuromarketing: positive and negative side of neuromarketing towards consumer

Meanwhile, the research of neuromarketing tools side effects on the subject

as shown in table 3, illustrates the hypothesis H4, where consumer or subject is

fretted that the neuromarketing tools used will harm their health. A few tools like fMRI

and EEG, have a strong magnetic field, or PET and TMS that release radioactive

radiation will cause health issues on participants like radiation. Due to these potential

hazards, some countries like France ban the use of all Neurometric but allow

Biometric tools (Ulman, Cakar, and Gokcen, 2015). Although, some Biometrics like

fEMG have a side effect which will alter the subject's natural facial expression.

Likewise, in table 2, most participants project a negative perspective towards

neuromarketing methods like they feel afraid, unwilling, curious of their health

concern, ethical and violating their privacy which they argue that it … ‘alters

consumer’s brain and free will’ (Dijana, 2016). Thus, Ulman, Cakar, and Gokcen,

(2015) suggest, it has been advised by NMBSA that all companies are compulsory to

consult with them before starting any neuromarketing projects and implement a legal

framework to be followed (p.1281).

5. Limitation

The current study was limited by the fact that the findings used is only the

secondary research from the previous paper regarding consumer's opinion about

neuromarketing. Another limitation is the primary studies by Flores, Baruca, and

Saldivar, which were conducted in 2014 and the recent 2019 paper by Tichindelean

is a revised revision based on Flores's research. Therefore, it is recommended that

further research is conducted to gain the latest primary data to validate the current

studies and get accurate and updated data.

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 Neuromarketing: positive and negative side of neuromarketing towards consumer

6. Further research

Further research is required to see whether there is still potential hazard of

neuromarketing tools as some recent studies like by Morin and Renvoise (2018),

mention that some tools have been improved with more advance and better

technologies. This will enable an evalution whether this factor still influences

consumers' negative opinions towards neuromarketing research. As of this research

being made, consumers only drawback to participating in the neuromarketing

research due to the side effect of the tools being used but still willing to do so for the

benefit it offers especially regarding the social concern.

7. Conclusions

In conclusion, this study has shown that the potential advantages of

neuromarketing are overweighing its disadvantages. However, the neuromarketing

tools have negative side effects that will harm consumers' health who undergo the

studies. It can thus be suggested that neuromarketing research bring benefit to both

consumers and companies.

The two-finding from this study supported the hypotheses H1 and H4 about

consumers’ opinion of neuromarketing; neuromarketing is good for consumers in

terms of encouraging social concern like in improving the education sector, etc. It

also helps companies to improve their marketing strategies or activities that can help

increase the synergy of company-consumer relationships such as providing a better

product even though at the same time consumers are concerned about the tools

used will affect their safety and health.

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References

Agarwal, S. (2015), "Introduction to Neuromarketing and Consumer Neuroscience",

Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 32 No. 4, pp. 302-303. doi: https://doi-
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