49. Neuromarketing: Current Situation and Future Trends

To understand the usefulness of neuromarketing in business terms, one needs to understand how consumers behave during the purchasing process. Thanks to brain imaging, one can better understand what determines this behaviour, and the opinions and preferences of consumers (Lindstrom in Buyology: verdades y mentiras de por qué compramos. Gestión, Barcelona, 2010). However, according to Zaltman (Cómo piensan los consumidores: lo que nuestros clientes no pueden decirnos y nuestros competidores no saben. Empresa Activa, Madrid, 2003), the ethical and moral implications underlying this activity require a judicious and socially responsible use of the information obtained. The method used is based on semi-structured interviews with seven Spanish neuromarketing firms. Thus, in order to respond to the current situation and to predict the future scenario in the short term, they were asked about the knowledge of both the population and Spanish firms, about the situation of the discipline versus traditional market research, and about the lack of specific regulations, among other things. The results demonstrate the incipient state of the discipline, although extensive growth is expected in the coming years. With greater current application in multinationals than in SMEs, the discipline is complemented with traditional methods, which in no case should be replaced.