What is neuromarketing? Methods and setting up a lab

01What is neuromarketing?

Neuromarketing is the research field that studies how consumers respond to products, brands, advertisements and prices through measurements of the brain and body; in academia it is more often called consumer neuroscience. Its methods are those of cognitive neuroscience and psychophysiology: EEG, eye tracking, electrodermal activity (EDA), heart rate, fNIRS, facial expression analysis and, in academic studies, fMRI.

A distinction often made in the literature is that consumer neuroscience refers to academic research aimed at understanding the processes behind decision making and consumer behaviour, while neuromarketing refers to applying that knowledge and those methods in practice, for example in advertising, packaging and product tests. Plassmann et al. (2015) note that the field’s first decade mainly established the basic neural processes of judgement and decision making, and that for the field to thrive this work must be carried into marketing theory and practice. Either way, the aim is to see not only what participants say but also the reactions they cannot put into words or do not notice: the second of an advertisement at which attention drifts, the product on the shelf that is never seen, the step of an interface at which mental load rises.

02What does neuromarketing research study?

The subject of neuromarketing studies is every moment at which a person meets a marketing stimulus. Common questions include the following:

• Advertising and video: in which scene attention gathers or drifts, and when the brand and product are seen.
• Packaging and shelf: whether a product is noticed among its competitors, and in what order the information on the label is read.
• Websites and apps (UX): the path users take until they find what they are looking for, the mental load at moments of decision, and the steps where errors occur.
• Price and choice: when and how closely price information is examined, and how gaze moves while choosing between options.
• Brand and experience: body and brain responses during real experiences such as tasting, a shop’s atmosphere or driving.

Some of these questions can be answered with eye tracking alone, others only with a combination of methods. Which method is needed depends on what the question sets out to measure.

03Methods used in neuromarketing

Each method answers a different question; none of them on its own measures “liking” or “purchase intention”. The table below compares the methods by what they show, their strengths and their limitations.

In practice the methods are combined. Eye tracking shows whether a stimulus was seen, EEG and EDA show what reaction arose at that moment, and behaviour and self-report show how that reaction carried through to a decision. Dmochowski et al. (2014), for example, reported that how similar viewers’ EEG responses were to one another was related to the reactions of large audiences to the scenes of a television series and to advertisements. Findings of this kind hold at group level and under particular conditions; they do not mean that an individual participant’s decision can be predicted.

04Study design and synchronisation

A neuromarketing study starts with a question before it starts with a device. “Which advertisement is better?” cannot be measured; “On which of two packs is the brand logo seen within the first two seconds, and which produces higher arousal?” can. The elements of a good design are these:

• Control of stimuli: duration, luminance, size and order are balanced; because pupil measurements are strongly affected by luminance, the luminance of compared images is matched.
• Baseline: a rest or neutral-stimulus period is recorded for each participant, and physiological values are interpreted relative to it.
• Enough participants and repetitions: EEG responses are noisy in a single trial, so many repetitions and enough participants are needed. The sample size is justified in advance.
• Behavioural measures: choice, simulated purchase, recall and self-report are collected alongside the physiological measures; the meaning of a signal becomes clear only when it is related to behaviour.
• Pre-registration and reporting: hypotheses, analysis steps and exclusion criteria are written down before the data are collected.

Synchronisation is the backbone of a multi-sensor study. To compare the moment gaze lands on a product with a change in EEG or EDA, all streams must be on the same timeline. There are three common ways to achieve this: devices recording on a shared clock (with g.Nautilus + Tobii Pro Glasses 3, gaze and EEG are recorded on the same clock), trigger markers sent from the stimulus computer to the devices, and network streaming protocols such as Lab Streaming Layer (LSL). Because of the display’s refresh delay, the moment an image actually appears on screen can differ from the moment the command was given; a light sensor measures that moment directly. Testing the timing during installation prevents surprises during analysis.

05Limits and ethics: there is no “buy button”

The most often repeated misconception about neuromarketing is that the brain has a “buy button” and that, with the right measurement, a consumer’s decision can be read. Research shows nothing of the kind. In their review of the field’s hopes and hype, Ariely and Berns (2010) state that neuroimaging is not expected to become cheaper than conventional marketing methods in the near future, but that evidence is growing that it may provide information about the consumer experience not obtainable in other ways, and that its most promising use may come while a product is still just an idea. The main limits are these:

• The reverse inference problem: a change in a brain region or an EEG measure does not prove a specific mental process; the same activity can arise in many different processes (Poldrack 2006).
• Arousal is not valence: a rise in EDA or heart rate can indicate interest as well as discomfort.
• The gap between the lab and the real decision: how far a reaction measured in an experiment carries through to real purchases must be tested separately. Although EEG-based prediction studies report promising results, outcomes vary with method and context (Hakim and Levy 2019).
• Unpublished commercial claims: “neuro” metrics whose methods and data are not shared in peer-reviewed publications do not carry the same weight as verifiable scientific findings.

The ethical dimension matters as much as the measurement. Participants are informed about the purpose of the study and the data recorded, and they give consent; academic studies are conducted with ethics committee approval. EEG, eye tracking and physiological recordings are personal data and may fall within the special categories of personal data, such as health or biometric data, listed in Article 6 of Türkiye’s Law No. 6698 on the Protection of Personal Data (KVKK); storage, anonymisation and sharing should be planned with the institution’s data protection office. Studies with children and vulnerable groups require extra care. The aim is not to steer consumers but to understand how people actually perceive products and communication.

06How to set up a neuromarketing lab

A neuromarketing or UX lab is not a single device but an arrangement that runs on one clock. Its typical components are these:

Stimulus station

A computer and display with known timing on which advertisements, web pages or product images are shown; in real-world studies, a shelf, a shop or a vehicle.

Eye tracking

A screen-based tracker for screen studies, and eye-tracking glasses with a scene camera for shelf and shop studies.

EEG

For measures of attention and cognitive load; in the field, wireless systems that are quick to set up.

Body signals

EDA and heart rate (ECG or BVP), and respiration if needed; with a data acquisition hub at the screen and with wearable devices in the field.

Synchronisation

A trigger box, a light sensor that captures the moment an image appears on screen, and a streaming infrastructure such as LSL.

Setting

A quiet room with steady temperature and lighting, and a separate workspace for the experimenter that does not disturb the participant.

Analysis

Recording and analysis software that brings the streams onto one timeline, and a team that knows the methods.

Nevosa’s UX and neuromarketing lab page describes configurations built from these components: a biosignal station that starts with skin conductance and heart rate; a lab that records research-grade EEG on the same clock as the biosignals; a real-world set-up that records in a shop or a vehicle with g.Nautilus EEG and Tobii Pro Glasses 3; and a neuroergonomics lab for driving and flight simulation. A lab can start small and grow on the same synchronisation infrastructure. Nevosa supplies these systems and provides installation, training, technical support and consulting from experimental design to data analysis. For planning, write your research question and the methods you want to use in the quote form.