The Beginning of Neuro-Marketing?

How did you feel after watching that Coc-Cola ad? Warm and fuzzy? Love it? Can't wait to get your hands on the closest ice-cold bottle of Coca-Cola? According to some YouTube addicts, the ad was described with comments ranging from "easily the best commercial of the Super Bowl" to "one of my favourite Super Bowl commercials ever..."

Can it be that the success of the spot is due more to research methods than a wonderful creative concept and execution? EmSense, a high-tech firm that has recently introduced a portable and non-intrusive measurement device aimed at tracking brain waves and biological data, would certainly argue so.

Coca-Cola became a client of EmSense late in 2007 to help the company decide which two TV ads to place in the Super Bowl. It was the company's first use of brainwave and biometric data to help select and edit their Super Bowl ads. In the weeks leading up to the game, over a dozen new ads were crafted and the final two spots were chosen based on EmSense's neuroscience research.

According to Katie Bayne, CMO of Coca-Cola North America, neuro-science techniques help marketers more accurately decipher consumers' feelings because they measure physical and emotional responses as they occur, as opposed to having people remember or interpret their feelings after the fact when doing things like surveys and focus groups.