Int. J. Technology Marketing, Vol. 14, No.

3, 2020 267

Food, internet and neuromarketing in the context of

well-being sustainability

Monica Varlese and Rosa Misso

Department of Economic and Legal Studies,
University of Naples Parthenope,
Naples, Italy
Email: monyvar93@gmail.com
Email: misso@uniparthenope.it

Christiana Koliouska* and

Zacharoula Andreopoulou
Laboratory of Forest Informatics,
Faculty of Forestry and Natural Environment,
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki,
Thessaloniki 541-24, Greece
Email: ckolious@for.auth.gr
Email: randreop@for.auth.gr
*Corresponding author

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to examine the role of the internet in relation
to the potential advantages and limitations arising from the implementation by
companies of strategies based on the study of the consumer’s brain in the field
of food choices. While on the one hand neuromarketing helps to better
understand, the consumer’s requests and desires allowing the company to put it
at the centre of all its decision-making process, on the other, there is the risk
that food companies using power of neuroscience to predict the behaviour of
the end user, they will generate in it an excessive dependence on purchase or,
negatively affecting his eating habits. Indeed, in a context in which internet
have the power to influence the life style of consumer, company can use
neuromarketing strategies for e-commerce in order to guiding users to new
patterns of food behaviour more healthy, preserving the environment and
society.

Keywords: internet; neuromarketing; well-being; sustainability; food

e-commerce.

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Varlese, M., Misso, R.,
Koliouska, C. and Andreopoulou, Z. (2020) ‘Food, internet and neuromarketing
in the context of well-being sustainability’, Int. J. Technology Marketing,
Vol. 14, No. 3, pp.267–282.

Biographical notes: Monica Varlese is a PhD student at the University of

Naples ‘Parthenope’. Currently, her research interests focus on the topic of
economics and sustainability. She has collaborated with the Simone Cesaretti
Foundation on the topic of quality management of agri-business. She has
produced publications on well-being sustainability, marketing and ICTs and her

Copyright © 2020 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

268 M. Varlese et al.

work has appeared in Calitatea-Acces La Succes, Journal of Environmental

Protection and Ecology, Rivista Di Studi Sulla Sostenibilità, and Innovative
Approaches and Applications for Sustainable Rural Development.
Rosa Misso is an Associate Professor of the Department of Economic and Law
Studies at the University of Naples ‘Parthenope’. Currently, she teaches
‘sustainable governance of rural systems’, ‘quality management of
agri-business and data base’, and ‘shared social responsibility and agri-food
businesses’. She has produced several publications on the topics of well-being
sustainability and her work has appeared in International Journal of
Agricultural and Environmental Information Systems, International Journal of
Electronic Marketing and Retailing, Journal of Knowledge Management,
Economics and Information Technology, Calitatea-Acces La Succes, Journal of
Environmental Protection and Ecology, Rivista Di Studi Sulla Sostenibilità,
Innovative Approaches and Applications for Sustainable Rural Development
and many others.

Christiana Koliouska is a Teaching Associate in the Aristotle University of

Thessaloniki. She received her BS in Forestry and Natural Environment, MSc
in Forest Informatics, MSc in Environmental Design of Cities and Buildings
and PhD in Forest Informatics from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki,
Greece (Faculty of Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Environment, School of
Forestry and Natural Environment). Her scientific and research interests
include ICT, web services, European Union environmental policy, sustainable
development, databases, strategic planning, decision support, multiple criteria
decision analysis, environmental protection. She speaks fluently in English,
German and Italian. She has published her work in international journals/books
and she has participated in national and international conferences. She was
awarded Postgraduate Research Prize in 2013. She has received postgraduate
and doctoral scholarship. She is member of Hellenic and European scientific
societies.
Zacharoula Andreopoulou is an Associate Professor in the Aristotle University
of Thessaloniki. She received her BS in Mathematics, BS in Forestry and
Natural Environment, and PhD in Forest Informatics, all from the Aristotle
University of Thessaloniki, where she is currently an Assistant Professor in the
Laboratory of Forest Informatics. She teaches courses on networks and internet
services, databases, project management, and software programming with focus
on the environment and sustainable development. Her scientific and research
interests include networks and internet services, databases, modelling and
project management in natural resources and environment, sustainable
development, and regional development applications. She is an active member
of scientific societies and she has organised and participated in many
international and domestic conferences. She is the author, co-author, and editor
in books regarding environmental informatics, and her recent scientific
publications include papers in various international journals.

This paper is a revised and expanded version of a paper entitled ‘Food, web and
neuromarketing in a well-being sustainability approach’ presented at
International Conference on Contemporary Marketing Issue, Athens, Greece,
27–29 June 2018.
 Food, internet and neuromarketing in the context of well-being sustainability 269

1 Introduction

In the last decade, the economic and political-institutional environment in which the
agri-food system operates has undergone profound changes that require companies an
afterthought of their business strategies, which must start from an in-depth analysis of the
market and consumer expectations and this, with a view to the economic, social and
environmental well-being sustainability (Vorley et al., 2016).
If ‘new economy’ means economic exchange based on ICT, then the electronic
commerce best represents the new commercial networks, based on the internet as a means
of communication and on IT as a means of global dissemination (Bodini and Zanoli,
2011). With the help of e-commerce, food products can be sold at higher prices, while at
the same time eliminating space and time constraints. Furthermore, the development of
e-commerce in rural areas can attract migrant workers in cities in their hometowns and
promote local employment, helping to solve many social problems (Zeng et al., 2017).
With respect to consumer motivations to buy food online, convenience has been
found to be a driving force behind the motivation to shop online for food products. For
example, some surveys found that the benefits of time savings as a result of shopping
online outweighed delivery fee costs. Thus, the time saved by not stopping by a
traditional food market strongly influenced some consumers to order food electronically
and have it delivered to their residences (Carpio and Lange, 2015).
In this context, the effect of branding is also important in internet marketing of food
products. Consumers’ loyalty is expected to be strong for established brand names,
especially for new internet users who explore familiar brands first (Baourakis et al.,
2002).
Companies operating in the agri-food sector study the behaviour of consumers who
buy products online using special tools of neuromarketing.
Specifically, neuromarketing techniques enable to take advantage of results from
consumer neuroscience thanks to the use of the functional magnetic resonance imaging
and electroencephalography, which allow the identification of the brain structures that are
enrolled during decision making about food products (Stasi et al., 2018).
Alongside traditional neuromarketing tools, Google Analytics and Hotjar platforms
allow to understand what they saw the users of a site, what they preferred and because
they take a specific action. Through these tools, companies continuously monitor and
control the consumer. The focus of communication is no longer on food, but on people,
their lifestyles, their consumption habits, their emotions, perceptions and unconscious
motivations. In other words, there has been a shift from a vision of food as a simple
product that satisfies a primary need, to a vision that transforms eating into an experience
to be experienced. In this perspective, the risk is that company can use the power of
neuroscience precisely to predict consumer behaviour to determine an excessive
dependence on the purchase of some products, negatively influencing their food choices.
Starting from these considerations, the present paper, offering a review of the main
neuromarketing techniques implemented through the web, aims to highlight in particular
the role and responsibility of companies operating in the food sector to guarantee
sustainable wellbeing for individuals and society as a whole by examining potentials and
limits offered by the internet through use of neuroscience in food choices.
270 M. Varlese et al.

2 Internet in the food sector

2.1 New consumers, food and internet

Today the consumer is different from that of the past. It is a conscious, shrewd,
informed, demanding consumer, but above all it is an active subject within the
production-consumption paradigm, in the sense that it is placed ‘at the centre’ of every
decision-making process of the producing companies. It can be said that there is a direct
relationship between the producer and the consumer. There is dialogue, communication
and therefore a considerable reduction in the information asymmetry that has always
characterised this relationship. Both companies and consumers are now aware of the
power of demand and how much the latter is able to influence market trends. We are
facing a transformation called ‘consumer empowerment’, it is a collaborative process in
which the consumer and the producer work together as a partner (Füller et al., 2009). The
process of empowerment sees the actors as potentially competent subjects and able to
decide what is good for their life. From a consumer perspective, access to more
information about the market is complemented by larger choice sets due to the global
reach of the internet, by the ability to exchange information and opinion with peers, to
change their own perceptions and behaviour in a rapid and largely unchecked manner,
and to define brands on their own (Pires et al., 2006). The customer, in fact, is no longer
satisfied just buying the product, but wants to feel protected in the post-purchase phase
and a protagonist in the product selection and selection phase. It is precisely in this last
phase that viral marketing comes into play (De Paulis, 2015). Viral marketing describes
any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others,
creating the potential for exponential growth in the message’s exposure and influence.
Like viruses, such strategies take advantage of rapid multiplication to explode the
message to thousands, to millions (Wilson, 2005). In other words, it is defined as a type
of communication that happens automatically, without the recipient’s intention. The most
common means used in order to promote viral marketing are: sending e-mails to friends,
offer free products designated especially for promotion, offer free e-mail account,
sending e-cards, sending white papers, newsletters and mailing lists and others (Rouva
et al., 2016).
In general, marketing plays a fundamental role because, on the one hand, it informs
the consumer and involves him in many of the company’s strategic choices; on the other,
it allows companies to know the end user, his needs and his requests. Unfortunately,
however, the trade does not always propose concrete examples in which the consumer is
centralised.
In the field of nutrition, for example, we are still faced with an ‘imperfect problem
solvers’ consumer, in the sense that he has limited information and on the basis of these
he makes his consumption choices (Wierenga, 1983). This is therefore a still imperfect
decision-making process. The consumer is still poorly informed and most of the time this
information is incomplete or incorrect. This imperfection, combined with the degree of
completeness of the information, could generate market distortion phenomena and,
consequently, could cause the consumer to lose the primacy of an active actor, even at the
expense of his health. In fact, for several years it’s clear that proper nutrition can help to
cure certain diseases and conversely, an irregular diet could aggravate or, in some cases,
generate pathologies. Ultimately, in order to achieve a real process of ‘consumer
empowerment’ (intended as a return of decision-making power in the hands of the client),
 Food, internet and neuromarketing in the context of well-being sustainability 271

it is essential that the consumer be educated and informed in a clear and correct manner
(Füller et al., 2009). Consumers often choose food unconsciously and their heuristic
decision-making process uses incomplete emotional information that drives them to
select foods that are more palatable and less salutary. As a result, consumers focus their
food choices to obtain short-term benefits such as pleasure or reward and to omit
long-term negative health consequences. However, the real problem emerges when some
consumers take these mental shortcuts recurrently as a coping strategy to evade negative
emotions, so they create habits that are difficult to modify with actions based on the
cognitive approach (Lòpez-Galàn et al., 2017).
In modern information, of which the internet is absolute leader, followed by
television, the brevity of the message leads to sometimes excessive simplifications and
the frequency and modalities through which some risky events are advertised, greatly
influence food choices. Internet marketing can be defined as the use of internet and
related digital technologies to achieve marketing objectives and support the modern
marketing concept (Eszes, 2010; Tsekouropoulos et al., 2013). Internet marketing
services are offered through the corporate websites where the communication between
the two parties takes place (Andreopoulou et al., 2014). In fact, it is probable that the end
user overestimates the risk of frequently advertised events and underestimates the risk,
perhaps higher, of unsponsored events. Also on the internet there is a lot of information
distorted and spoiled by commercial interests, in addition to unfortunately also illegal
trade of food, food supplements and drugs.
So much of the pseudo-information present on the network negatively influences the
quality of food choices and suggests more or less dangerous shortcuts (for example diets
and consumption of slimming products) to achieve certain health and physical well-being
goals.
One of the negative effects that could derive from such distortions of the agri-food
market is the unmotivated adoption of deprivation schemes for certain categories of food.
In fact, there are many who choose gluten-free, lactose-free, yeast-free diets without
animal fats, despite not having problems of intolerance or particular pathologies, just
because they think that the substance hurts in general, perhaps only to have heard on TV
an expert recommend moderate consumption. These products contain more fat, including
saturated, and salt but fewer minerals and vitamins than their equivalents with gluten
(Pellegrini and Agostoni, 2015). Indeed, the diet must be not only free of gluten but also
healthy to avoid nutrient, vitamins and minerals deficiencies or excess (Bascuñán et al.,
2017). Many consumers reduce even the consumption of vegetables, considering them
irritating just because they are excluded from the diet of those suffering from colitis. In
the absence of a precise medical indication, these types of voluntary limitations could
lead to imbalances and food shortages in the medium to long term, especially if they
involve dietary adjustments consisting in excessive consumption of other foods, which
could be even less healthy than the excluded ones.
In general, there is a huge increase in the variety of products for those suffering from
intolerances, allergies or food pathologies, which have created a real market parallel to
the traditional and highly productive market, with decreasing consumer prices, thanks to
the progressive abandonment of the niche position to get closer to mass consumption.
Visiongain (2017) estimates that the global market for gluten-free foods and
beverages was worth $5.12 billion in 2017. The increase in the number of people
diagnosed with gluten intolerance or celiac disease is the main driving force of the
market. At the same time, the number of consumers of gluten-free foods is increasing
272 M. Varlese et al.

rapidly due to the high demand for gluten-free products from non-gluten-sensitive buyers
but perceiving them as healthier.
This is also due to the development of phenomena such as food design and the
different styles called ‘food-experience’, based on food paradigms strongly oriented
towards games and entertainment. Those who prefer these styles are constantly increasing
(Schiffersteina et al., 2016). The problem is that many of these end up masking the true
essence and quality of food. An example is the edible perfume, which is sprayed on food
‘to enhance the multisensory character of the food act’. In fact, it is precisely by resorting
to these phenomena and by guaranteeing authentic flavour and aromas that the food
industry that produces foods of low quality, is able to establish itself on the market by
‘masking’ its limits.
In this context, marketing has led to other forms and vehicles of identification and
loyalty, embracing new technologies and all the results of internet-based memberships
and relationships.

2.2 Neuromarketing and food

In recent years, new scenarios have opened up for marketing and the study of emotions,
research has continued at an increasing level both in science and in application
perspectives. Marketing has developed an effective toolbox of fine-tuned techniques
aimed at steering consumer preferences by creating needs and preventing need reflection,
extended information search, and careful product comparisons. Taking advantage
of new technologies, marketing has come up with new selling techniques such as
profiling, redlining, radio-frequency identification (RFID), biometric marketing and
neuro-marketing, manufacturing new desires (Council of Europe, 2008). Marketing is
particularly interested in sociology and communication psychology: the use of non-verbal
methodologies (biofeedback and eye-tracking) has allowed us to find clear explanations
to the models of fruition of everyday life stories but also of the television advertising,
shopping experience and product placement.
More specifically, emotions from ‘unknown objects’ have become a subject of study
and in-depth analysis for many disciplines, thanks to the enormous progress made by
neurosciences in recent years. Neuromarketing, a recent science that connects
neuroscience to marketing, has shown that 95% of purchase decisions are based on
irrational mechanisms, in practice on unconscious dynamic ones that make us associate
certain emotions with a brand or product.
Just think of the fact that an image of food, can cause not only profound changes in
attention but also an increase in salivation, especially if these images are combined with
other sensory signals related to food (Spence et al., 2016).
By adopting the typical assumptions of neuroscience this discipline tries to predict the
impact that marketing activity has on the different cerebral areas of man. ‘Decisions take
place within seconds and appear in the mind of the consumer as’ flashes ‘during which
the brain combines the information collected from the environment with those that
already reside in long-term memory’. The choice process is typically viewed as a
two-stage mechanism in which values are first assigned to each option and then
compared to yield choice (Knutson et al., 2007). These values are stored in the striatum
and medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), and are subsequently used by circuits in the lateral
prefrontal and parietal cortices to guide choice (Levy et al., 2011). Recent studies have
 Food, internet and neuromarketing in the context of well-being sustainability 273

confirmed that in addition to the right and left hemispheres, the brain is divided into three
distinct parts that communicate with each other, although each has a specific function:
 the rational brain (thinks), the cerebral cortex that processes rational data and shares
its deductions with the other two
 the intermediate brain (listens), elaborates the emotions and deep feelings and shares
its results with the other two brains
 the primitive brain (decides), takes into consideration the information that comes
from the other two and makes the decisions (Rolla, 2015).
Thus, the brain is responsible for all consumer behaviour. To function properly, it needs
to use a lot of energy. In fact, although it represents only 2% of our body mass, it burns
almost 20% of our energy. Of course, we use only about 20% of our brains consciously
(Morin, 2011).
Anna Iorga, founder of Buyer Brain and a leader in Neuromarketing in Europe, says
that dopamine, which acts as a neurotransmitter in the brain, plays an important role in
our food and beverage choices. In particular, it acts as a mediator in induction. A
mediator who, associated with sensitivity to reward, conditioning and control, influences
many of our food choices. These decisions are hedonistic; our subconscious associates
certain foods with pleasure and happiness. The ‘centre of pleasure’ is located deep in the
area of the brain that is called Nucleus Accumbens.
In simple terms, it is the area of the brain most closely involved in the elaboration of
motivation, pleasure and reward.
In order to better understand the mechanisms that are not aware of purchasing or
consumption decisions, the Neuromarketing uses tools for brain monitoring, biometric
measurements and implicit tests (Sloan, 2015). The currently practiced Neuromarketing
is heterogeneous, as companies adopt a variety of technologies and the average coverage
of neuromarketing appears to be disproportionately high (Fisher et al., 2010). In
particular, to find clear explanations to the models of fruition of everyday life stories but
also of television advertising, shopping experience and product placement, one can resort
to three non-verbal communication tools:
 The Eyetracker, which detects the eye movements, record them, analyse them and
report which parts of the spot have been watched.
 The EEG-Biofeedback, which detects changes in electrical potential on the
participants’ heads explaining ‘how’ the subjects looked at the spot, i.e., if they were
memorising, if they were alert, if they were easily or effort fully processing the
information transmitted (Iorga, 2018).
 The face-reader, based on the facial action coding system (FACS) which register the
expressions that we involuntarily assume, associated with pleasure, amazement or
sadness when we are faced with a new object or a new food product (Ekman and
Rosenberg, 1997). It is an ‘emotion detection’ tool that allows us to recognise the
emotions of consumers from the face, changing the way to communicate.
So, if it is true that our emotions are reflected in everyday life and even in small decisions
such as those related to consumption, if companies want to succeed need to start a good
promotional campaign that leverages feelings. At the centre of everything there must be
people, with their needs, desires, feelings, while the products or services offered by
274 M. Varlese et al.

companies have the goal of channelling these emotions and evoke a unique experience on
an emotional level. The quality of this experience it will also determine the customer’s
trust in the brand or product, impacting on the loyalty process and therefore on the fact
that the person will return to buy the same product or others of the same brand (Faraoni
et al., 2018). For this the companies that use this strategy are constantly increasing they
base their marketing campaigns on sensory communication and therefore on the
solicitation of our five senses.

2.3 Ethical and social critical issue of neuromarketing

Ethical discussions of neuromarketing focus on concerns that it might negatively impact
society overall, particularly consumers, especially when it comes to ‘neuro’ marketing of
educational products which is “the misapplication of neuroscience to education
marketing” (Sloan, 2015). It is worrying to know that companies could make claims
about the power of neuroscience to predict consumer behaviour. On the other hand, there
are still too many questions we do not know about: Who is using neuromarketing and for
what specifically? What advice and data do they receive as part of these services? If and
what returns do they receive on the investment? But the most important question to ask
is: will neuromarketing come to discover the ‘buy button’ in the consumer’s brain? From
an ethical point of view, the way in which we consumers are controlled and monitored by
companies is frightful. There are many opinionists and researchers who think this way. In
other words, we risk being damaged by a constant bombardment of marketing and a
possible result could be excessive consumption and purchase dependency (Lee et al.,
2017). With this in mind, it is not to be underestimated the risk that food marketing can
generate significant negative impacts on nutrition education of adolescents and not just.
In fact, the advertising sector, especially in the food sector, is expressly exploiting the
special relationship that adolescents have with the new media. The ubiquitous advertising
for snacks and the resulting increase in unhealthy eating have been found to contribute to
the worrisome obesity epidemic, especially among youth (Samson and Buijzen, 2019).
The major companies operating in the food sector, including Coca-Cola, McDonald’s,
Burger King and Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) increasingly implement online
marketing campaigns that create unprecedented intimacy among adolescents and brands
and products, subjecting them to particular risks that are not treated in current US policy
and self-regulation schemes (Montgomery and Chester, 2009).
So, if on the one hand the study of consumer behaviour by companies operating in the
agri-food sector through the use of neuromarketing tools, demonstrates their ability to
recognise the primary role that must be attributed to the end user (‘consumer
empowerment’), as the ‘centre’ of every business decision, on the other, the adoption of
sales policies based on the prevention of consumer behaviour through the continuous
monitoring of all its actions, could cause damage not only to adolescents but also to
adults and not only by negatively influencing their food choices, but also by developing a
sometimes excessive dependence on the purchase of certain products. Consequently,
psychiatrists in university studies and in clinical practice should be alert to the
implications of new neurotechnology, including neuromarketing, as these applications
generate important consequences for both public trust in academic medicine and for the
evolution of the understanding of mind/brain interrelations (Lynch, 2004). Today,
innovation plays a fundamental role in terms of diversification, promotion and
enhancement of the quality of the products offered. In this perspective, the
 Food, internet and neuromarketing in the context of well-being sustainability 275

neuromarketing tools especially in the agri-food sector should be used according to the
sustainable marketing approach which aims to reduce the conflicts generated between
private needs and collective needs and in overcoming the social and ecological divide, or
rather respecting the principles of sustainability (Annunziata et al., 2011). In this regard,
the introduction of a code of ethics to practice these techniques could be useful, so as to
define a sort of normative structure (Murphy et al., 2008).

3 Internet and e-commerce

3.1 Neuro web for food e-commerce

As stated previously, there are two methods of brain monitoring used by neuromarketing,
that are functional magnetic resonance imaging and electroencephalography. The first
measures the metabolic activity in the brain through the observation of the hemodynamic
response correlated to neuronal activity with good spatial resolution (approximately
1–2 mm). The EEG, instead, measures the cortical activation of consumers through the
detection of cortical electrical activity by means of an electroencephalogram (EEG) with
electrodes placed along the surface of the scalp according to the international system (SI)
10–20, which represents the common reference system. The EEG signal measures the
activity of brain areas, revealing the state of cortical activation of the subject and it is
composed of five brain waves, each characterised by different frequencies and amplitudes
and reflecting different cognitive states (Stasi et al., 2018).
These two distinct methods, combined with the latest advances in behavioural
psychology and the latest eye tracking experiments, allow to understand in depth the
hidden reasons and the consequent reactions of consumers. Now we know, for example,
that while it is about to pay for a purchased product, the human brain activates the
heartache area, but we also know that this does not happen in cases where there is a
significant discount.
And this is only one of the many small but crucial rules that, if applied in the
development of an online business, can really give a prodigious push to optimise the
conversion rate. So, knowledge is ‘power’, even in the universe of online sales (Saletti,
2018).
The e-commerce market for food and grocery is growing fast, 2017 online sales
were $31.39 billion. In particular, E-commerce linked to the food sector in Italy is worth
27.4 billion euros, or 56% of the total volume of Italian digital commerce. The most
impressive figure is the annual growth rate, which shows an increase of 16% compared to
the volumes of 2017. Food e-commerce is therefore increasingly affirming the lifestyle of
Italian consumers, offering great opportunities for growth to industry players who will be
more receptive to new channels and tools (ANSA, 2018). What neuromarketing is well
aware of is that there are a series of instinctive reactions that can be generated in those
who buy already from the packaging. A good package, therefore, is able to attract the
attention of consumers and do it unconsciously. In particular, for food products purchased
through e-commerce platforms, packaging is the main tool through which companies can
transmit the quality, freshness and genuineness of the product to the consumer. For these
reasons, companies operating in the agri-food sector, in order to induce consumers to buy
on their e-commerce sites, aim to develop packaging strategies that guarantee the
transportability and transparency of the product (Hawkes, 2010). Moreover, in a context
276 M. Varlese et al.

in which consumers are increasingly attentive to recycling issues, the environmental

impact of consumption and the sustainability of raw materials, it is also essential to
guarantee the reuse and sustainability of packaging (Ahvenainen, 2003). But, the most
important reason for the success of e-commerce is the usability of the site. If people
cannot make purchases, the site will not sell anything. The usability attributes that
contribute to the quality of use will include the style and properties of the user interface,
the structure of the dialogue and the nature of the functionality (Bodini and Zanoli, 2011).
Also, the more easy and fast the payment process, the more satisfied e-customers are
from their purchases. If the buying process is easy, with clear steps and in a way that
conveys security, customers acquire a positive image of e-commerce websites, propose
them to family and friends and they are very likely to revisit them (Skordoulis et al.,
2018). In general, customer satisfaction can be regarded as a multidimensional construct
and can be defined as the perception formed when consuming a product/service
(Skordoulis et al., 2017).
For their part, the companies operating in the agri-food sector, right through the
e-commerce sites, can control e monitor consumers and their food choices. A typical
e-commerce application is a three-tier application with the intermediate level where most
of the application logic is executed. The lower level is a database and the application uses
the database for persistence and complex query execution and still does a lot of heavy
data management tasks (Jhingran, 2000).
Also, to understand what they saw the users of a site, what they preferred and what
they have not seen there are special tools for the analysis of navigation data, the most
common is certainly Google Analytics. It is a powerful, easy-to-use reporting platform
that allows you to decide which data to display and customise customer relationships
with just a few clicks.
In particular, Google Analytics allows:
1 find out how many people are on the site at a given time, where they come from and
what they are viewing
2 create a custom metadata board in a few minutes in order to have immediate access
to the data you are interested
3 understand the customer segments and what is the level of their involvement with the
site, through the use of customised variables
4 become aware of any sudden or unexpected variation in site metrics through the
intelligence function.
Among other things, neuromarketing, not only has allowed marketers to know clearly
what he does and how the user works, but also because he takes a specific action. In this
regard, a software that combines the functionality of a quantitative analysis with those of
a qualitative analysis is Hotjar. It is a visual software that registers the spontaneous
browsing of users and allows you to create three heat maps:
 Click Heatmap that highlights all the points in which the user clicks (not just links)
 Mouse Movement Heatmap that shows the movements of the mouse of our users
along the screen, highlighting, with bright colours, the points where the cursor stops
 Scroll Tracking Heatmap that allows you to understand how deep, using the scroll,
users view the page.
 Food, internet and neuromarketing in the context of well-being sustainability 277

All these parameters, appropriately analysed and integrated with EEGe and
psychophysiological data (heartbeat, and skin conductance) allow us to evaluate the
ability to attract not only of web pages, but also of advertising spots, and to measure the
degree of emotional attractiveness or reaction rejection that an image of food or a spot
can cause thanks to the measurement of the type of encephalographic waves and of the
part of the brain activated by stimulation. This data also allows you to choose which
frame of a video clip to attract more attention or stimulates the right emotional activation
in order to be able to choose the most activating and performing ones during the
lengthening phase of a spot (Russo, 2015).

3.2 The phenomenon of food ordering and delivery platforms

In a context such as the current one, where people’s frenetic lifestyle often makes
irreconcilable work, family and personal commitments, it is becoming more and more an
obstacle to be cooking for lunch or dinner. This is the main reason why the ‘food
delivery’ phenomenon is increasingly expanding (Caratù, 2018). This is confirmed by the
data on the transacted aggregate stated in 2017 of the five leader of ‘food delivery’
market, as shown in Table 1.
Table 1 Data on the transacted aggregate stated in 2017 by the food delivery major players in
the world

Major players in the world Revenue

Delivery Hero 3.8 bn
Takeaway.com 1.1 bn
Just Eat 432.81 mln
GrubHub 400 mln
Deliveroo 144.91 mln

The time that online shopping save is a utility that customers gain. A customer sees
online shopping as useful because it is able to save time, reduce efforts, and offer
expanded store hours and efficient checkouts (Yeo et al., 2017).
Internet has made restaurant shopping services feasible, as diners can be given a
selection of restaurants within a specified distance of their location. Food can then be
delivered to them, or diners can go to the restaurant to pick up their order. Additionally,
availability of global positioning system (‘GPS’) receivers on mobile phones allows
diners to locate restaurants near their physical locations and place orders from these
restaurants through a restaurant service system (Sendelbach et al., 2018).
Also in this case, a useful tool available to these companies, so that consumers choose
their dishes, is the neuromarketing applied to Visual merchandising. This latest is
therefore concerned with both, how the product or service and their brands are visually
communicated to the customer and whether this message is aptly decoded (Paluchoa,
2017). Significant attribute of marketing tools research and visual merchandising in
connection with neuroscience is that 50–80% of unplanned purchases are influenced by
initial (positive) neural excitations which appear during shopping online. In particular, in
the case of food delivery, the primary role of the human eye comes into play, as the
search is totally involved in visual processing. Each eye processes the visual signals and
transmits them through millions of fibres to the chiasm where the nerve fibres are on the
278 M. Varlese et al.

other side what the brain receives from both the eyes but the stimuli from the right side
are processed by the left hemisphere and the stimuli from the left side are processed by
the right hemisphere (Berčík et al., 2015).
The brain itself matches colours, shapes, facial expressions, and countries with
meanings in the way they are seen. Therefore, in order to attract the attention of the
consumer on their plates, the restaurateurs who sell through the above mentioned food
delivery platforms, invest a lot on the design of the menus, both for what concerns the
design, both for what concerns the content, experimenting with tricks based on the
analysis of the consumer’s brain and promoting sales (Cho et al., 2019). For example, for
what concerns the design, is fundamental the use of specific colours such as green,
yellow or red, to each of which our brain associates emotions. Or, by not aligning prices
in a single column, restaurateurs induce consumers not to quickly identify cheaper dishes
by choosing them. With the use of management software, these companies are also able
to record customer preferences over a period of time, and then re-use this information in
the menus. Added to this is the fact that most online food orders are sent via smartphones,
therefore, all information related to our behaviour is also collected on online platforms
that, through algorithms, establish the probable behaviours of the consumer: “a person
who is playing Sudoku will probably order sushi through his mobile phone in the next
few hours.” Also, to eliminate the uncertainty of app of smartphone experience and get
answers from real recordings about the who, what, how, and why, Smartlook records and
tracks users’ actions, giving the power to understand the app the way users do. In
particular, Smartlook allows you to understand why the users are getting lost, why
they’re not finishing orders and why they leave the app.
From this point of view, neuromarketing represents a method of manipulation of
individuals.

4 Conclusions

Numerous studies show that neuromarketing tools allow companies not only to control
and monitor consumer behaviours, but also to predict their purchasing choices (Levy
et al., 2011). Through the internet, everything is even simpler. Companies operating in
the agri-food sector thanks to the development of new platforms have full visibility of all
user actions on the site and based on the collected data implement strategies that most of
the time do not preserve the health of consumers and do not protect the environment.
About this, the enterprises that sell through e-commerce can take into account the interest
of the economy and environment by controlling their own carbon emissions to minimise
the costs of the whole closed-loop supply chain and improve customer satisfaction (Guo
et al., 2017). In fact, the growing demand for fossil fuels for energy and transport, the
mass production of technological goods, the intensification of agriculture and the rapid
rate of urbanisation are the main causes of carbon dioxide emissions and, therefore, of the
climate change that increasingly represents a significant environmental, social and
economic threat (Ntanos et al., 2018). About the users, instead, internet can improve the
reference to a sustainable food lifestyle, guiding the visitors, for example, to new patterns
of food behaviour most functional to the maintenance of their health (Misso et al., 2016).
In this context, companies operating in the agri-food sector and wishing to contribute to
the sustainability of individual and collective well-being have the responsibility of
calibrating their marketing strategies to the real needs of consumers, in full awareness of
 Food, internet and neuromarketing in the context of well-being sustainability 279

the power of neuromarketing through the internet. Therefore, as Pop et al. (2014), we
believe that the main challenge facing neuromarketing researchers is to ethically
implement these procedures. In other words, the ‘manipulation’ of consumers must take
place in a positive sense, pursuing rational and educational goals that are beneficial for
human beings and society in general, such as campaigns against sweets, an unhealthy and
fat diet in which nutritious and organic products are scarce and campaigns that promote a
good physical condition and the daily consumption of a minimum quantity of water, fruit
and vegetables, etc. This change is fundamental also for the achievement of the Goal 2 of
Agenda 2030 which has taken a step forward in the fight against hunger by adopting a
‘zero hunger’ objective for ‘achieving food security and improving nutrition and
promoting sustainable agriculture’ within 2030 (United Nations, 2018). About this, the
e-commerce is expected to become ‘again’ on the basis of social statistics and is likely
that within five years all the major ecommerce platforms make intensive use of social
features in the management, communication, proposition of their offerings (Sturiale and
Scudieri, 2016).
This research aims to lay the foundations for rigorous scientific investigations into the
methods and manipulative techniques of neuromarketing adopted by companies operating
in the agri-food sector, so that above all these companies become part of a broader
socio-economic and environmental project that goes beyond the company’s core
business. In particular, as an active part of this project for the sustainability of well-being,
that constitutes a broad discipline that focuses on the social, economic and environmental
impact of human activities (Andreopoulou and Koliouska, 2018), they must use various
neuromarketing tools in full respect of this role (Misso et al., 2018) and without risk of
not understand the potential and benefits that technologies and knowledge born with the
‘new economy’ can generate to their businesses (Annunziata et al., 2011; Misso et al.,
2016).

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