Theoretical background
Plato, Rene Descartes, Adam Smith, and the trio of Engel, Kollat and Blackwell might seem to be strange bedfellows but in the unfolding story of neuromarketing, they were part of an
Journal of Consumer Marketing
Volume 24 · Number 7 · 2007 · 385–394
unintentional conspiracy to promote a focus on rational rather than emotional thinking and decision making.
In some ways, the relevance of the “black box” began with the philosopher Plato who compared the human soul to a chariot pulled by the two horses of reason and emotion. In his mind, human behavior clearly had an emotional element. However, it is the horse of reason that has prevailed through the centuries and has been predominantly used to explain human behavior (see the Economist, 2005). For example, anthropologists typically attribute the invention and use of various artifacts to enlightened (if not serendipitous) reason.
Early economic philosophers emphasized the importance of the “economic man” who made reasoned decisions; Adam Smith adopted the thesis that the rational allocation of resources would best serve a society’s interest; and the essence of Rene Descartes’ seventeenth-century thesis of mentality assumed two kinds of mental activity: simple determinant reactions controlled by the nervous systems and complex indeterminate thoughts produced by the soul (discussed by Glimcher, 2003). Obviously, it was easier to make attributions to rationality and nervous system than to the emotions and soul of man.
More recently, marketing practitioners embraced the importance of value creation (offsetting costs against benefits) and the key role of satisfaction (fulfillment of pre- existing expectations). Both of these widely accepted marketing concepts assume a consumer seeking some form of cognitive economic rationality when making decisions.
Ignoring Plato’s horse of emotion was not intentional, it was simply easier for marketers to explore that which could more easily be empirically observed, measured and reduced to a predictive model. Marketers explained marketplace choice behaviors by constructing inferential models where carefully evaluated inputs were correlated with carefully evaluated outcomes (see for example, Engel et al.’s (1968) model of Consumer Behavior). In other words, there were deterministic reasons why Consumer A behaved in a particular way. There were often neat, logical causalities of behavior although the actual workings were hidden from view.
However, through the science of neuro-imaging, Plato’s horse of emotion can be reunited with his companion–the horse of reason. Neuromarketing has the capability to demonstrate that emotional and rational thinking co-exist, in fact, are co-dependent. “Neuroeconomics challenges the notion that emotions can only corrupt economic decision making. Indeed, emotions grab people’s attention and motives them to focus the rational brain on the issue at hand” (Damasio quoted in Coy, 2005). While skeptics may argue to protect their position in the status quo, neuromarketing is making its way into the lexicon of research agencies on a wave of physical evidence. Sophisticated techniques provide images that document both rational and emotional responses to marketing stimuli.