Transparency and reliability in neuromarketing research

Abstract

In this chapter, we discuss about the transparency and reliability issues in the practice of the application of neuroscience-based methodologies on relevant marketing stimuli (e.g., neuromarketing). It is hypothesized that one of the reasons of the misperception and overestimation by the public opinion and mass media of the actual capabilities of the neuromarketing to inform marketing researcher is due to the lack of the transparency about the methodologies employed by the neuromarketing companies. In fact, different companies offer services that are based on proprietary computational methods and approaches that are not fully validated or disclosed through scientific publications to the scientific community. This opacity in the methodologies employed by some companies makes it difficult for the scientists to separate supported and unsupported claims of validity of the services offered by those companies. Such confusion is reflected in an often misplaced communication toward the public opinion and the final users of these methodologies about the effective capability of such approach to capture the generation of the decision making of the persons in front of marketing stimuli.