Biological approach: Consumer behaviour

Question 1

What is the one explanation of consumer behaviour for the biological approach?

Answer 1

neuromarketing

Question 2

NEUROMARKETING: consumer behaviour

Answer 2

Use of technology to measure consumer decision making. neuromarketing techniques are used to detect changes in response to particular products. It uncovers how people genuinely react to products which enables businesses to produce the most appealing products and the most effective adverts

Question 3

What are the three neuro marketing techniques?

Answer 3

fMRI, Facial coding, eye tracking

Question 4

fMRI

Answer 4

Measures brain activity. When a brain area is more active it consumes more oxygen. To meet this increased demand more blood flows To the active area. The scanning machine measures what areas of the brain are active at a particular time. The participant lies in the fMRI scanner and is shown an advert and the scan can show what feelings are felt towards the advert

Question 5

Facial coding

Answer 5

Measures facial expressions to gain an insight into a person’s emotional response to a product, advert etc. The facial action coding system (FACS) measures expressions more objectively. the FACS categorises ‘micro’ Facial expressions from the positions of 43 facial muscles. Electrodes attached to the face detect slight muscle movements as people watch adverts/look at packaging.

Question 6

Eye tracking

Answer 6

a method of measuring eye movements to study what captures people’s attention. Measuring the direction and duration of a person’s gaze when watching an advert will show advertisers what features of the advert they pay the most attention to. Advertisers can see whether people pay attention to the product and descriptions (which is what they want) or are distracted or may be confused by features in the advert. advertisers can then make changes to the advert if people do not process enough information about the product. eye tracking equipment is portable so it can be used in real life situations

Question 7

Name 2 strengths of the biological approaches explanation of consumer behaviour

Answer 7

1. more useful than other techniques

Neuromarketing techniques can be more useful than techniques like self report because we are not aware of our subconscious decision-making processes. neuromarketing techniques can be more useful than self-report because they can be more objective. eg, Moore Found that fMRI scans showed a strong correlation between activity in a reward area of the brain (the ventral striatum) and how popular songs were three years later. (measured by sales figures). How much the participants said they liked the songs (self report) did not correlate with the sales figures. Therefore neuromarketing can reveal useful information about customer behaviour that can’t be assessed by self report

2. some scanning equipment is portable

Some scanning equipment is relatively cheap and portable such as eye tracking devices, So it’s practical to use in settings like shops

Question 8

name one limitation of the biological approaches explanation of consumer behaviour

Answer 8

Some scanning equipment is inaccessible

Some equipment like fMRI machines are expensive so small companies could not afford to use them and they are also not portable meaning it could make the experiment unfair