Session 5

Neuromarketing

Three master variables of neuromarketing

• Attention – Did consumers notice my product or my ad?
• Emotion – Do consumers like it?
• Memory – Will consumers remember it?

Prof. Sudipta Mandal / Department of Marketing 2

 Neuromarketing

Three master variables of neuromarketing

• Attention
• Conscious phenomenon

• Pre-attentive processes – either conscious (top-down attention) or

nonconscious (bottom-up attention)

• Something new or NOVEL – good for attention

• Bad for attention – familiarity-liking and processing-fluency effects

may disappear.

Prof. Sudipta Mandal / Department of Marketing 3

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Three master variables of neuromarketing

• Emotion (usually classified along 3 dimensions)
• Valence – Positive vs. Negative

• Intensity – High vs. Low

• Motivation – action oriented – Approach vs. Avoidance.

Prof. Sudipta Mandal / Department of Marketing 4

 Neuromarketing

Three master variables of neuromarketing

• On Memory
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkaXNvzE4pk

Prof. Sudipta Mandal / Department of Marketing 5

 Neuromarketing

Three master variables of neuromarketing

• Memory
• Most complex of the 3 master variables of neuromarketing

• Input side – Encode, i.e., store memories

• Output side – Retrieve, i.e., remember memories

• Each of these has a conscious and a non-conscious component

• Conscious Encoding – Explicit learning or memorization

• Nonconscious Encoding – Implicit learning – happens in the

absence of memorization

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 Neuromarketing

Three master variables of neuromarketing

• Memory
• Conscious Retrieval – Recall – voluntary retrieval of memory – Top-
down

• Nonconscious or Bottom-up Retrieval – Recognition

• E.g., We may not be able to consciously recall the message of an

ad, but we can easily recognize it when we see it

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Three master variables of neuromarketing

• Memory
• Important for marketers to understand about memory is that –
memory is constructed – it is not passively retrieved

• Not like a video recording that we “replay” when we remember it

• Every time we retrieve a memory, we change it

• So, what is the implication for marketers?

• Marketing not only invokes memories, but also literally alters them

• Memory is an important component for which of the following –

Efficiency, Novelty, Familiarity, and Processing Fluency?

• Absence of familiarity is a cue for surprise and attention

Prof. Sudipta Mandal / Department of Marketing 8

 Neuromarketing

Three master variables of neuromarketing

• What is Learning?
• The acquisition and containment of information

• What is Memory?
• Ability to contain and make use of the information at a subsequent
stage

Prof. Sudipta Mandal / Department of Marketing 9

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Brands as Memory Connections

• What is a brand?
• A brand has physical aspects – logo or slogan or
spokesperson.
• But at the core – it is an idea that exists in the minds of
people.
• Most important element of this idea is how it is connected to
other ideas and feelings in people’s minds.
• These connections depend on the lifetime of experience with
the brand.

Prof. Sudipta Mandal / Department of Marketing 10

 Neuromarketing

Remember …

Prof. Sudipta Mandal / Department of Marketing 11

 Neuromarketing

Remember …

Prof. Sudipta Mandal / Department of Marketing 12

 Neuromarketing

Brands as Memory Connections

• Direct experience – through actual usage.
• Indirect experience – through exposure to advertising,
marketing, and experience of others/WOM.

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Memory
• When people experience an event, multiple representations
of the event are encoded in memory
• Depending on the task that people subsequently engage in,
a particular representation reflecting either explicit or implicit
memory of this past event is retrieved.

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Types of Memory
• Sensory memory: The system that allows you to remember
sensory input long enough to process it in your brain. It lasts
less than a second.
• Short-term (Working) memory: this system allows you to
retain a piece of information in your conscious mind, usually
for no more than 1 minute, while you deliberate about it.
• Long-term memory: the system that stores memories from
your more distant past, including things you have learned
and things you have experienced. Only long term memory is
critical for brands and branding.

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 Neuromarketing

Types of Memory

Priming Classical
Conditioning

Non-associative
Learning

http://www.human-memory.net/types.html 16
Prof. Sudipta Mandal / Department of Marketing
 Neuromarketing

Procedural Memory
• Related to learned skills – riding a bike or driving a car
• Brands are generally not associated with the acquisition of
or use of such skills
• But they can become part of a person’s perception of a skill
– e.g., when one brand is believed to be superior to another
• Example – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHSxhAVCiKY
• Example – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAFpIN1-p-E

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Priming
• Implicit memory process by which one idea more easily
comes to mind after exposure to another idea
• Brands can either be primes themselves or be primed by
other things
• E.g. – If a new product category is launched under a well-
known brand name then the brand will imbue value to that
product category

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Classical Conditioning
• Learning to associate an otherwise neutral item with a
positive or negative outcome
• Brands imbue value to products that would otherwise be
relatively indistinguishable from each other
• What are the stages in classical conditioning?
• US 🡪 UR
• S: US 🡪 UR
• S 🡪 UR
• Example – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dDyEP_k65Y

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Operant Conditioning
• Classical conditioning is a PASSIVE learning experience
• Operant conditioning is an ACTIVE learning experience
• An individual’s behavior is modified by the consequences of
one’s actions
• Reaching out to object X
• Experiencing pain (punishment)
• Learning to associate reaching out for X and pain
• Next time X is encountered, reaching out for X is less likely
to occur

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Brands and Memory

• Explicit memory can have 2 components:
• Episodic memory – where we store personal experiences
with brands, such as events we have been involved in at a
specific time and place
• Semantic memory – where we store accessible information
about a brand, such as its name, product attributes, and
other concept-based knowledge

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Explicit Memory
• At the time of exposure, a representation of the information
is encoded in memory and is associated with a spatio-
temporal context that links the information to the exposure
incident. This memory representation is referred to as
“explicit memory,” also known as “episodic memory.”
• Explicit memory is characterized by a person’s conscious
recollection of the event and reflects what he or she
remembers about the event.
• Explicit memories can be retrieved voluntarily – so they are
consciously accessible.

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Explicit Memory
• Commonly used tests of explicit memory:
• free recall,
• cued recall, and
• recognition.
• The day-after recall test that is most often used by
advertisers to assess advertising effectiveness is an
example of an explicit memory measure.

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Implicit Memory
• Implicit memories are nonconscious and inaccessible.
• We are not consciously aware of them.
• Memory may also be inferred by an improvement on the
performance of a subsequent task without any direct
reference to the past event being made.
• Evidence suggests that people are more likely to use
information they have been recently exposed to when
performing a subsequent task, even though they may not be
consciously attempting to retrieve information from the
exposure.

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Implicit Memory
• Enhanced performance as the result of prior exposure
suggests that people have memory of the exposure event,
even though they may not consciously remember it.
• This enhancement reflects implicit memory of the event and
is often referred to as “priming.”
• In social cognition and consumer research, priming often
refers to the manipulation of prior exposure that results in
increased processing fluency.

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Implicit Memory
• Implicit memory distinctions:
• One type of implicit memory that relies on perceptually
driven processes, referred to as “perceptual priming,” and
• Another type of implicit memory that relies on conceptually
driven processes, referred to as “conceptual priming.”
• Example of semantic priming –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOrWjIIgBM4

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Perceptual Priming
• Distinct memory representation of the perceptual aspects of
the stimulus that operates at a pre-semantic level and does
not require conscious processing.
• When a person is exposed to the stimulus, this
representation of physical features is activated and becomes
temporarily strengthened.
• Perceptual priming reflects an enhancement in the
perceptual fluency of the stimulus, rendering the stimulus
more readily identifiable on subsequent encounters
• Memory of the event is demonstrated when respondents’
task performance improves as the result of enhanced
perceptual fluency
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Conceptual Priming
• Another type of memory representation that affects semantic
memory may also be instantiated as the result of exposure.
• Semantic memory represents the store of knowledge of
language and other conceptual information that people
possess.
• This representation of knowledge structure may be strengthened
or modified by exposure to certain stimuli.
• Conceptual priming reflects the temporary enhancement of the
conceptual fluency of this representation, rendering the
stimulus more accessible in memory.
• Memory of the event is demonstrated when respondents’ task
performance improves as the result of enhanced conceptual
fluency.
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 Neuromarketing

Conceptual Priming
• Memory research shows that people retrieve different types
of memory depending on the task at hand.
• What does this mean?
• It means that explicit tests of memory may not be
appropriate for accessing implicit memory and vice versa.
• Rather, different measures of memory are required to
assess different types of memory.

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 Neuromarketing

Perceptual Priming
• To assess implicit memory, respondents who have been
exposed to some stimuli are asked to perform a task in
which no reference is made to the exposure event.
• Respondents’ task performance is then compared with a
baseline measure of performance in the absence of a prior
exposure, and implicit memory is inferred from the improved
performance.
• Measures that assess perceptual priming involve the
presentation of a perceptually degraded version of the target
stimulus as a cue at the time of test. For example, the
fragment “P_ _ t _ ne” might be presented to elicit the word
“Pantene” that had been presented earlier.
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 Neuromarketing

Conceptual Priming
• Measures that assess conceptual priming involve the
presentation of cues that are conceptually related to the
target stimulus but bear no physical resemblance to it.
• For example, participants might be given the category
“shampoo” to prompt the generation of the brand name
“Pantene” that had been presented earlier.
• Word fragment completion, word stem completion,
perceptual identification, category exemplar generation, and
answering general knowledge questions are commonly used
implicit memory tasks.

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Remember…
• An implicit memory task cannot be classified as a measure
of perceptual or conceptual priming on the basis of the kind
of test per se.
• Rather, the classification is made on the basis of the
relationship between the stimulus presented at the time of
exposure and the cue presented at the time of the test.
• For example, flashing the word “Intel” briefly on the
computer screen and asking the respondent to identify the
word assesses perceptual priming if the respondent has
been exposed to the word “Intel” earlier. However, this test
assesses conceptual priming if the respondent has been
exposed to the word “computer” earlier.
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 Neuromarketing

Remember…
• The key distinction between tests that assess perceptual
priming and those that assess conceptual priming hinges on
whether the cue presented at the time of the test bears a
perceptual resemblance OR has a conceptual association
with the target stimulus.

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Distinction between memory types

• Explicit memory performance is affected by:
• Attention
• Elaboration
• Delay
• Retroactive interference 🡪 Retroactive interference is when
more recent information gets in the way of trying to recall older
information. An example would be calling an ex-friend by your
new friend's name. The new name retroactively interferes with the
old one, which is clearly problematic for recall.
• Proactive interference 🡪 Proactive interference is when old
information prevents the recall of newer information. E.g., with
telephone numbers.
• List length
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Distinction between memory types

• Perceptual priming, in contrast, does not seem to be
affected by these manipulations.
• Knowledge of a person’s performance on an explicit memory
test does not help predict his or her performance on a
perceptual priming task and vice versa.
• Changes in electrical neural activity also indicates that
event-related potential patterns at the time of exposure are a
good indicator of subsequent explicit memory performance
but not of perceptual priming task performance.

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 Neuromarketing

Distinction between memory types

• Conceptual fluency is enhanced in the absence of explicit
memory.
• Research with amnesic patients also shows that they are
capable of learning semantic information when their explicit
memory performance is severely impaired.

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Distinction between memory types

• Evidence suggests that conceptual and perceptual priming
are distinct constructs of memory.
• Conceptual priming relies heavily on top-down processes.
• Perceptual priming relies more on bottom-up processes.
• Conceptually driven implicit memory indicate that it benefits
from elaboration at the time of exposure – perceptually
driven implicit memory does not.

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Distinction between memory types

• Although the day-after recall test is commonly used to determine
advertising effectiveness in practice, such a test of explicit
memory may be inadequate in capturing the effects of prior
exposure on consideration set formation and brand choice
decisions.
• It has been argued that consumers often base their purchase
decisions not on what they can explicitly remember about an
advertisement but on what they know about the product.
• Implicit memory reflects changes in what the consumer knows
rather than what he or she remembers; therefore, tests of implicit
memory should be a better indicator of the effects of prior
exposure to brand information on brand choice.
• As both conceptual and perceptual priming may result from a
single prior exposure, the important question is how each type of
implicit memory may influence brand choice.

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Remember …
• Explicit memories must be refreshed regularly to avoid
being overwritten by newer memories
• Implicit memories can be much longer lasting without
reinforcement
• Explicit and implicit memories are highly networked – Coca
Cola brand (semantic memory) and associations of
quenching your thirst on a hot summer day when you were a
young child in your hometown (episodic memory)

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Effecting Habitual Buying

• Neural evidence shows and suggests the following:

• Maintain consistent triggers at the point of sale – don’t change

the situational cues that trigger habitual buying

• Don’t ask your customers to think – if they start thinking about

purchase, they may start thinking about alternative brands

• Don’t violate the habitual buyer’s expectations – excessive

novelty attracts attention – attention leads to conscious
deliberation – deliberation may lead to consideration of
alternatives – contingent on whose perspective you are taking

• Trigger behaviour, not attitudes – habitual buying is about

activating a behaviour with a situational cue, not remembering an
attitude
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Growing Brain-Friendly Brands

• To trigger buying goals ensure that the brand and its
associated concept are represented visually in close
proximity to each other
• A successful conceptual connection with a brand is often
facilitated by strong, positive emotional associations
• When a brand has strong associations with a purchase
occasion, such as a holiday or a lifecycle event, this is a
good indication that it is successfully reinforcing conceptual
connections in its marketing and advertising

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Growing Brain-Friendly Brands

• High levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty are
indicators that a brand is delivering consistently on
consumer expectations whenever a purchase or a
consumption takes place
• The more often and more radically a brand changes the
conceptual connections communicated in marketing and
advertising, the less likely it is to achieve reinforced long-
term brand associations in memory
• Mature brands that depend only on familiarity to sustain their
conceptual connections are at risk

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