Title: Neuroscience technologies in marketing: a study of gender and TV advertisements using electroencephalography

Authors: Tomás Uva; Carlos Lucas de Freitas; Teresa Paiva

Addresses: Centro de Estudos de Gestão CEG-IST, Instituto Superior Tecnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal ' Centro de Estudos de Gestão CEG-IST, Instituto Superior Tecnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal ' Centro de Electroencefalografia e Neurofisiologia Clínica CENC, Lisbon, Portugal

Abstract: Marketing research can benefit from the employment of neuroscience technologies and methodologies to better understand consumer attitudes and behaviour, such as that of men and women viewing TV advertisements. In this neuromarketing study, the neural activity of ten female and ten male participants was recorded using high density electroencephalography (EEG), while they were watching video stimuli that integrated an oddball paradigm with a rare-frequent ratio of 25%-75%. Both female and male participants had more activity in the prefrontal, fronto-temporal, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and parieto-occipital cortices. However, statistically significant differences between genders were identified for all the electrodes. Further differences were found in the P300 amplitudes, brain-frequencies' power and activity in emotion-related brain areas, particularly the ACC, which were higher for women than men. These findings suggest that men and women have distinct cognitive patterns of neural activity while processing TV advertisements, thus supporting neuromarketing studies as an effective method to assess this type of advertising.

Keywords: neuromarketing; neuroscience marketing; electroencephalography; EEG; gender differences; TV advertisements; oddball paradigm; sLORETA; event related potentials; frequency analysis; brain maps; innovation; technology; television adverts; consumer attitudes; consumer behaviour; cognitive patterns; neural activity.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTMKT.2015.072181

International Journal of Technology Marketing, 2015 Vol.10 No.4, pp.362 - 380

Received: 26 Mar 2015
Accepted: 27 Mar 2015
Published online: 02 Oct 2015 *

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