Importance and potential of Neuromarketing for Brand Management in business-to-business Marketing

MA-Thesis / Master von Friedrich Gentner

Introduction:

Outline of the Issue:

Business administration theory has dealt since its inception with the issue of providing practical support to corporate decision making. For their explanatory models, it has resourced the knowledge body provided by economics, philosophy, sociology, and psychology. In the last few years it increasingly draws also on the findings taken from neuroscience. By means of so-called imaging techniques, neuroscientists can conduct a deeper analysis of the relationships and processes in the brain. The question of how buying decisions occur, and how these may be influenced has finally created Neuromarketing. The findings from this research filed reveal that feelings and emotions play a much greater role than previously supposed and that these can be addressed through brands. However, the management of immaterial values such as brands does not fit well with the predominantly engineering-oriented mindset of top management in B-to-B companies. In his preface to ‘B-to-B-Markenführung’, Klaus Backhaus states:

‘Effektive und effiziente Markenpolitik ist in der Praxis des Business-to-Business-Marketing immer noch ein Stiefkind, auch wenn mittlerweile eine Reihe von wissenschaftlichen Veröffentlichungen bis hin zu Lehrbüchern zur Markenpolitik in diesem Bereich vorliegt. Einer der wesentlichen Gründe hierfür liegt sicherlich darin, dass der Business-to-Business-Bereich stark durch Personen mit einer technischen bzw. ingenieurwissenschaftlichen Ausbildung geprägt ist, die für ‚intangible assets’, wie sie die Marke darstellt, erfahrungsgemäß weniger Aufmerksamkeit aufbringen’.

Even though the purchase decision is made by the ‘Buying Center’ in the B-to-B market, the assumption prevails that the findings from Neuromarketing can still be applied because this group consists of human beings as well.

Objective:

The following study will consider the findings taken from Neuromarketing in the light of particular instances of B-to-B-Marketing. The question will be raised as to why and to what extent Neuromarketing is relevant for brand management in B-to-B-Marketing. The possibilities arising from this comparison will only be presented as examples and do not claim to be complete. An example from the Corporate Communication Sector at Siemens will be taken to display the application.

Methodology:

Extensive scientific literature research, dissertations, the internet as well as market studies commissioned by Siemens have been consulted in the course of this study.

Firstly this study will give an overview of the definitions and approaches to the relevant subject areas and distinctions between other related areas and concepts. Following this, neuroscientific principles will be established in order to understand the processes which lead to a purchasing decision. The next chapter will study the methods and techniques regarding how purchasing decisions can be influenced. Then the special features of the B-to-B market will be compared in light of the preceding findings, and the resulting conclusions will be drawn. Finally, examples taken from the Corporate Communications Sector will be illustrated. The summary of the study will comprise a response to the research question which was raised in the introduction. The final words will contain a brief conclusion of the most important aspects of the study with personal remarks and assessments.

Gender-neutral formulations have been avoided on grounds of readability. Both genders are always meant within the text. Nevertheless gender-neutral formulations have been used wherever possible.

Table of Contents:

Text Sample:

Chapter 3.1.3, Information processing in the brain:

3.1.3.1, Attention and involvement:

In general, involvement is the willingness or the will to concern oneself with a topic. High involvement processing (HIP) is the conscious examination of a topic. It is activated by the will and requires a high amount of energy. Low involvement processing (LIP) is a conscious mental process. It occurs on a very low level of attention and takes place automatically, i.e. regardless of whether we want it or not. As opposed to HIP, the perception and subsequent storage of information occurs without us interpreting the content or being able to draw conclusions from it. LIP is an explanation of why advertising messages are stored subliminally. The unconscious absorption of information from the environment, their assessment and sorting, as well as the unconscious activation of associations in our memory, which result in a manipulative behavioral reaction, are referred to as action-relevant priming. The triggering of these behavioral programs shows that subliminal perception and subconscious codes have a distinct bearing on emotional behavior. In an experiment, John Bargh, psychologist at the American university of Yale, randomly interviewed waiting passengers at an airport. One half of the interviewees were to visualize their best childhood friend, the other half a bothersome colleague. Without realizing it, the test persons had therefore already been manipulated. Those who visualized their friend mostly agreed to take part in another test. The other half mainly refused. Thinking of a friend made the first half cooperative, because along with it, positive associations were unconsciously loaded into their working memory. The other half were subject to aversion due to experienced negative emotions. The test persons themselves rejected this explanation very strongly.

Hence, the advertising effect does not depend on active and focused attention but rather on the use of highly efficient, implicit processing mechanisms on behalf of our autopilot.

3.1.3.2, Learning of advertising messages:

According to Robert Heath, we process advertisements with a higher level of involvement when we first see them, and pay more attention to the messages of performance. Each additional contact with the same message progressively decreases the level of involvement. Subsequently, only the brand name and the presented associations are stored, without any interpretations. Whenever the advertisement is seen again, the already existing associations are reinforced until they effectively define the brand within the customer’s brain. This matches the general principle of learning. If external stimuli (e.g. color) and internal signals (e.g. emotions, mood) co-occur repeatedly, they are linked to each other. In total, it can be said that most brand learning occurs at an extremely low level of attention. Customers do not properly perceive how or to which extent they pick up information about a brand. The information and associations thus stored within the brain form an interconnecting network for a brand. Heath refers to this as an engram. Within the scope of the modification, newly picked up information on the brand are incorporated into the existing brand network and change it as a result. While incorporating the new information, certain existing connections of the brand network are activated. To these, those new information are then attached. The more certain brand network connections are activated in the process, the stronger they become.

Advertising thus mainly takes effect via implicit learning. This means that advertising is particularly effective when it contains emotional tags that the brain attaches to messages it deems emotionally relevant. Over time, simple associations define the brands within our brain.