An Overview to Neuromarketing and its application

One of the major issues in consumer behavior is to understand consumer decision making process which always attracts scholars, marketers and managers. After disappointment from traditional methods, new emerging and combined methods have been developed, such as neuromaketing approaches. The combination of neuro and marketing implies the merging of two branches of science (neuroscience and marketing). Neuromarketing is a new field of marketing research that studies consumers’ cognitive and affective responses to marketing stimuli. Researchers use technologies, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging electroencephalogram and eye-tracking methods, to measure changes in the brain activity to improve our understanding on how consumers make the decisions and what part of their brain is involved in this decision. Despite the perceived advantages of neuromarketing, some marketing scholars are reluctant to apply these neuroscience methods and there is still uncertainty about neuromarketing.
The purpose of this review is to delineate a clear and comprehensive picture of neuromarketing as well as to address functional and empirical aspects of neuromarketing tools. A better understanding of neuromarketing may increase our knowledge in its fundamental implications with marketing and management.