INTRODUCTION
There is a lot of research about successful cases of the use of neuroscience in the evaluation of products and their publicity. Many industries, including food, fragrances and cosmetics have developed novel methodologies that are presented as success stories in conferences and publications.
However, there is a great opportunity where neuroscience has not yet been fully exploited and that is during the early stages of product design. The cosmetic formulators have a tool with an interesting potential to improve their designs and guarantee from the beginning that consumer will receive their creations very well. In this article we present practical examples of how electroencephalography (EEG) and eye-tracking can be used in the early stage of formulations design.
Applying neuroscience to marketing
Neuroscience is the study of the human nervous system, including the brain, its anatomy and functions. Neuroscience is fundamental to understanding the brain states and physiological reactions that happen with the exposure to brands, products and advertising.
Neuromarketing is the application of neuroscience principles to obtain information about how a person makes decisions based on the analysis of emotion, attention and memory, as it relates to a product. The objective is to investigate and learn how consumers respond and feel in front of different products and stimuli, capturing different signals from body.
Neuroscience techniques include physiological or biometric measures, which are based on body signals. Some that can be applied in the product design stages include evaluations of:
- Facial expressions: the human face registers a wide variety of emotional states, from observable changes such as a smile and unobservable changes such as muscle movements.
- Eye-tracking: eye movements and dilation of the pupil when presented with a stimulus.
- Electrodermal activity: Transpiration on the skin of the fingers.
- Respiration and heart rate: how the respiration rate and heart rate can change after exposure to the stimulus.
- Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI): This tool is very accurate and interesting because it provides precise images of the area of the brain that is presenting the activity. It is also very expensive, which is why it is not easily accessible.
- Electroencephalography (EEG): This technique is becoming very popular for product studies since it costs less than fMRI and evaluates the differential of electric fields generated by brain activity when a panelist is presented with a product or stimulus.
Explicit and implicit motivations
There are two ways to evaluate the impact that a stimulus or product has on the consumer: explicit evaluations and implicit evaluations. The first are related to the perception the user or panelist expresses about a specific stimulus and are usually evaluated in focus group sessions, home use test, in-depth interviews, etc
Implicit evaluations are aimed at assessing motivations such as frustration and interest. Neuroscience is a great ally here, since the objective is to determine the real perception about the stimulus which, in some cases, is not easy for the user/consumer to explain (table 1).
Table 1. Implicit and explicit motivations.
Implicit Motivations | Explicit Motivations | ||
What to evaluate? | How to measure? | What to evaluate? | How to measure? |
· Frustration
· Meditation · Excitement/ pleasure · Interest |
· EEG
· fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) · Eye tracking · Facial expression · Electrodermal activity |
· Color, odor, flavor, texture, and hearing
· Efficacy and performance, e.g. “Soap should clean and smell good,” “Soap should produce enough foam.” |
· Qualitative and quantitative tests
· Home use test · Focus group · Efficacy tests with bioengineering equipment |
Applying neuroscience techniques in the design stages can make us understand how and why our brains feel more attracted to some types of formulations more than others.
Example 1. Eye-tracking related to lip color selection
The eye-tracking technique allows us to know which areas of an image attracts the person’s attention. This is very interesting because in product design, there are many ways to apply this technique, so formulation times are reduced and decisions are made faster in the R&D process.
Below is an example of eye-tracking based on the application of six lipsticks of different colors. With the help of this technique, you can predict which shade or color will attract more attention from the panelist. Eye-tracking generates heat maps that indicate the intensity in time and duration of greater interest. If the panelist pays more attention to an area, the color is redder.
Figure 1. Example of heat-maps
It is also possible to observe the sequence of saccades, or quick movements of both eyes. This is also interesting because you can determine which colors are looked at first, which indicates greater interest, as shown in Figure 2 below. You can see in this example, the panelists started looking at the same lip color, which can support the selection of a color in the design stage.
Figure 2. Examples of sequences of saccades.
With the eye-tracking methodology, it is also possible to obtain consolidated responses between different groups of panelists. In the Figure below, the six images on the left present the consolidated heat-map for a group of 10 men and the six images on the right present the consolidated heat-map for 10 women. This is an interesting example of how to evaluate the motivation or taste between men and women. As seen in the two figures, the interest in different colors varies between genders.
Figure 3. Consolidated heat map comparison
Example 2. Eye-tracking in the study of the relation fragrance, name and image
Recently, we published a test in which we found eye-tracking useful in determining how the relationship between olfactory note, name and image is perceived. It is important to design and perform a baseline calibration to know the context of saccadic movement performance when there is and there is not a relationship between the elements that make up the stimulus.
Figure 4 presents an example of when there is a link, or coherence, between the name and the image, as the word—”Arbol” or tree—corresponds to the image. Figure 5 presents an example of when the word—“Zanahoria” or carrot—does not correspond to the image.
The amplitude of the saccade movements is different based on coherence and that is precisely the opportunity to develop new methodologies applicable at the formulation stage.
Figure 4. Example of response when there is coherence in the presented stimulus.
Figure 5. Example of response when there is not coherence in the presented stimulus.
The design of stimuli with coherence and without coherence is very interesting to evaluate with eye tracking because it opens the doors to the design of new methodologies. In our recent test, we evaluated how this new methodology could be applied to understand the link between the name, the figure and an olfactory note.
Figure 6 presents an example of response when there is coherence between the three elements that make up the stimulus: the name “Lavanda” or lavender, the image of lavender and the olfactory note that the panelist smelled while looking at the stimulus.
Figure 6. Example of response when there is coherence in three elements that make up the stimulus (name, image and olfactory note).
Figure 7 presents an example of response in which there is no coherence between the elements of the stimulus: the name, the image of lavender, but an olfactory note to coffee. Here we can observe also that the amplitude of the saccade movements varies when there is coherence and when there is not.
Figure 7. Example of response when there is no coherence in three elements that make up the stimulus (name, image and olfactory note).
Figure 8 shows the design for the panel calibration and the readings, including the presentation of the olfactory notes.
Figure 8. Order of stimuli presentation for panel calibration
In the next part of this article, I will offer additional examples of how neuromarketing can be used in personal care and cosmetic product development.
REFERENCES:
- Barden, Phil. Decoded. The science behind why we buy. John Wiley & Sons Ltd. United Kingdom, 2013.
- Kandel, E. Principles of Neural Science. McGraw Hill Ed, USA, 2013.
- Niedziela M, Carbone M, Thau Bill. Applied neuroscience to understand cosmetic consumers. Cosmetics & Toiletries Magazine. Vol 130, No 7. September 2015, p 50-62.
- Genco, S. Neuromarketing for dummies. John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd, 2013.
- Jiménez, J. Application of eye-tracking methodology for fragrance evaluation. IFSCC Magazine, Vol 18, No 2, June 2015, p 23-26.
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This is a very interesting and informative article.
Thank you very much
Excelente articulo John. Gracias por publicarlo en Prospector.
Espero que todo este bien. Saludos desde NJ
Ingrid