Speaker's B oh The Evolution of Neuromarketing Research:

From Novelty to Mainstream

How Neuro Research Tools

Improve Our Knowledge about Advertising

HORST STIPP Editor's Note:

The A d v e rtis in g Research
F o undation
h o rst@ th e a rf.o rg
Neuromarketing is not a series o f snapshots. It is like video streamed at top speed over the widest broadband
spectrum. It never slows down; it never stops changing and evolving. To understand it fully, however,
it is necessary to take a snapshot c f today's practice and how far we have come (and how quickly). While
we obviously are somewhat biased, it is nevertheless fair to say that no organization has helped shape and
drive neuromarketing to the same extent as the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF). And, arguably,
no one has been more instrumental in that process than Dr. Horst Stipp, who has been the anchorman of
two remarkable programs: the ARF's "Neuro 1" and "Neuro 2 " initiatives. Before time and neuromarket­
ing move too far beyond the present, Speaker's Box has asked Dr. Stipp to provide a brief overview of the
past and current state of practice and to point out where the field o f neuromarketing likely will be heading.
Dr. Stipp joined the ARF in 2011 after a lengthy career as svp at NBCUniversal, where he led strategic
marketing and consumer research for the television networks and new digital platforms.
Douglas West
Professor of Marketing, King's College London
Contributing Editor, JAR

In the last five years, neuroscience-based marketing
research has developed from a novelty to a widely
accepted research tool. The Advertising Research
Foundation (ARF) started to explore the field in
2010 to determine the value of these methods for
improving advertisement testing. Prior to that
time, the available methods struck most marketers
as inconclusive. Moreover, they were not practical
to administer and were far more expensive com­
pared to well-honed advertising-testing methods
(Vakratsas and Ambler, 1999).
Sometime around 2010, an increase in inter­
est in biometrics and other neurological methods
was fueled by advances in neurological science
and by technological advances in neuroscience
methods and tools. In short, they were becom­
ing more conclusive, more practical, faster, and
more economical.
With that foothold, neuroscience-based methods
have developed rapidly. Many have become so
mainstream that they have moved out of labora­
tories and other scientific settings. Indeed, biomet­
ric tools—which, for example measure a runner's
heartbeat—now can be found on smartphones and
as "wearables" that monitor athletic performance.
And, during the last five years, neuromarketing
researchers have conducted hundreds of advertis­
ing studies, expanding and improving their capa­
bilities and insights.
The advance of neuromarketing also has been
promoted by marketers' and researchers' growing
belief that established practices, theories, and mod­
els in advertising had overemphasized cognitive
processes. Earlier scholarly work had recognized
this overemphasis: ".. .we must relieve measures of
affective responses from cognitive bias" (Vakratsas
and Ambler, 1999).
The result has been progressive interest in con­
sumers' unconscious and emotional reactions to
marketing messages to better understand the role
emotion plays in advertising effectiveness.
Initially, vendors responded with an often-
confusing variety of methods and with claims of
superior performance, which marketers found diffi­
cult to evaluate. Most client market researchers sim­
ply had neither the skill set nor the tools to assess the

1 2 0 JDURflHL OF RDUERTISMG RESERRCH June 2 0 1 5 DOI: 1 0 .2 5 0 1 /J A R -5 5 -2 -1 2 0 -1 2 2


scientific quality—or to compare the scien­
tific basis—of the various methods.
To address this quandary, the ARF was
asked by advertising, media, and market
researchers to conduct a study that would
help to evaluate these new neuromarket­
ing methods. The result was a two-part
study called the "The ARF NeuroStand-
ards Collaboration Project."
The ARF's “Neuro 1 ” and “Neuro 2 ” Projects
Many details of the ARF's "Neuro" projects
can be found in a white paper (Stipp and
Woodard, 2011). They also were summa­
rized in two other papers—one in Admap
(Stipp, 2012) and the other in this journal
(See "How Reliable Are Neuromarketers'
Measures of Advertising Effectiveness?"
on page 176). (Varan e t«/., 2015)
After consultation with its members,
the ARF developed a proposal to conduct
a collaborative project designed to meet
the need for an independent assessment
of the issues surrounding the application
of neuroscience to marketing research.
By increasing transparency, "Neuro 1,"
the ARF's "NeuroStandards Collabora­
tion Project," helped members become
better-informed users of neuromarketing
research even as it put into place a baseline
of best practices.
Eight Neuro 1 vendors represented a
wide range of methods—
• biometrics (eye tracking, skin con­
ductance response, electrocardiog­
raphy), facial coding/fM EG (facial
electromyography);
• EEG (electroencephalography)/SST
(steady-state topography); and
• fMRI (functional magnetic resonance
imaging)
•—that evaluated a series of television
commercials. A scientific review process
of the vendors' reports involved inde­
pendent academics with expertise in
THE EVOLUTION OF NEUROMARKETING RESEARCH: FROM NOVELTY TO MAINSTREAM
cognitive neuroscience and communica­
tions and marketing.
Neuro 1 concluded that neurological
and biometric marketing research methods
have the potential to provide important
new insights for the evaluation of com­
mercials and other visual or print stimuli.
The strength of neuromarketing methods
lies in their ability to uncover emotional
reactions better than many other methods.
The availability of second-by-second data
on viewer reactions seemed well suited
to diagnose and improve marketing mes­
sages. At the same time, ARF researchers
pointed out that these methods, like all
research tools, need to be validated and
administered following best practices.
Neuro 1 concluded that marketers
should explore further neuroscience-based
research methods. It also provided direc­
tion for a "Neuro 2" project that would
seek to determine whether adding these
new methods to a traditional test actually
could help to identify those commercials
that would lead to increased sales.
Neuro 2 enlisted the cooperation of
five sponsors, ranging from financial to
household-products companies, and it
analyzed television commercials for which
sales data, GRP levels,1 and other business
indices were available (Stipp, 2014). The
television spots were analyzed with
• "traditional" measures (such as survey
questions about purchase intent and lik­
ing the advertisement);
• a range of biometric and neurological
measures (similar to Neuro 1); and
• the IAT (implicit association test)
measures.
A marketing-mix model analysis of
these data, in fact, indicated that adding
' GRP, or gross rating point, is a measure o f the total touch-
points achieved by an advertising campaign among its tar­
get audience. The GRP number is a function o f reach and
the frequency with which the campaign reaches its target.
June 2 0 1 5
neuroscience-based methods to a tradi­
tional test of commercial creative can iden­
tify advertising creative that leads to more
sales, with fMRI measures providing the
strongest improvement in this study.
The Future of Neuromarketing Research
The five-year journey summarized earlier
suggests a bright future for neuromarketing
methodologies and research as long as ven­
dors observe best practices. Consider that
• marketers today are focused on deal­
ing with the rapid changes in consumer
behavior, especially those caused by
new media technologies that affect
where, when, and how consumers are
exposed to advertising. It is not only the
consumer, however, who is changing.
Similar technological changes also are
making an impact on the research meth­
ods and measures marketers are using.
The evolution of modern neuromar­
keting research illustrates this well. Not
only did the process start with techno­
logical innovations but, as described
here, those innovations continued dur­
ing the more recent period. There is no
doubt that this process will continue,
further improving the capabilities—and
lowering the cost—of biometric and
other neuroscience-based tools.
• Marketers increasingly are using these
methods because they are gaining new
valuable insights that
^ help them to improve creative output
and
provide a better understanding of the
role of emotions in advertising.
These "neuro" methods provide more
direct and more detailed information on
important aspects of consumer response
to marketing messages and on consumers'
needs and motivations. If best practices are
implemented, the methods will provide
JOURnHL OF RDUERTISinG RESEARCH 121
THE EVOLUTION OF NEUROMARKETING RESEARCH: FROM NOVELTY TO MAINSTREAM
a d d itio n a l data p o in ts and insights th a t lead
to be tte r de cisio n -m a kin g processes.
H orst S tipp is evp, research and innovation: global and
ad effectiveness at the Advertising Research Foundation
(ARF). Prior to that he was svp, strategic insights and
innovation in NBCUniversal's research department,
where he oversaw strategic marketing and consumer
research for NBCU’s television networks and the new
digital platforms. With a career spanning four decades,
Dr. Stipp is the winner of the ARF's Lifetime Achievement
Award 2015. Fie has published in English and German
and presented at conferences in the United States and
Europe on a wide range of topics—from advertising
effectiveness and branding to the development of the
1 2 2 JDURI1HL OF HDUERTISMG RESEARCH June 2015
media in the digital age. Fie also taught a seminar on
media metrics at Columbia Business School.
REFERENCES
Stipp , H. "Can Neuroscience Make Your Adver­
tising More Effective?" Admap, September 2012,
45-47.
Stipp, H. "From Novelty to Must-Use." Admap,
September 2014, 38-40.
Uncovering
S tipp , H. and R. P. W oodard .
Emotions—Using Neuromarketing to Increase
Ad Effectiveness. White paper. New York, NY:
Advertising Research Foundation, 2011.
V akratsas, D. and T. A mbler. "How Advertis­
ing Works: What Do We Really Know?" Journal
of Marketing 63, 1 (1999): 26-43.
V aran, D., A. L ang , P. Barwise, R. W eber, and
S. Bellman . "How Reliable Are Neuromarket­
ers' Measures of Advertising Effectiveness? Data
from Ongoing Research Holds No Common
Truth among Vendors." Journal of Advertising
Research 55, 2 (2015): 176-191.
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