Is Neuromarketing the Next Invasion of Privacy?

[Ivan Seeking]

...What he found was the first data from an entirely new field: neuromarketing, the study of the brain's responses to ads, brands, and the rest of the messages littering the cultural landscape. Montague had his subjects take the Pepsi Challenge while he watched their neural activity with a functional MRI machine, which tracks blood flow to different regions of the brain. Without knowing what they were drinking, about half of them said they preferred Pepsi. But once Montague told them which samples were Coke, three-fourths said that drink tasted better, and their brain activity changed too. Coke "lit up" the medial prefrontal cortex -- a part of the brain that controls higher thinking. Montague's hunch was that the brain was recalling images and ideas from commercials, and the brand was overriding the actual quality of the product. For years, in the face of failed brands and laughably bad ad campaigns, marketers had argued that they could influence consumers' choices. Now, there appeared to be solid neurological proof. Montague published his findings in the October 2004 issue of Neuron, and a cottage industry was born [continued]

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/persuaders/etc/neuro.html

See the option at the top right-center of the page to watch online.

 

[Mickey]

These kinds of things have been around for a while.

As a business grad, I can tell you that they basically make majoring in marketing and economics absolutely worthless.

 

[capitolmonkey]

Yeah, they have been around for years...it's just subliminal advertising all over again. Because that was banned they find a way around it. Also i heard that some company or companies have developed a software that links up to your webcam, notes several expressions, and depending on what facial expression you have at a certain time, a pop-up or something comes up selling you something, and apparently you facial expression is supposed to show that you sub-consiously or consiously desire that item at that certain time.
Obviously only works when your webcam is actually turned on by you.

Overall...neuromarketing is and invasion of privacy! it won't be long until people realize it's pretty much the same thing as subliminal advertising and will inevitably get banned again. Thus leading to another inevitibility...within another decade or so they'll find another way around...another way to pebble dash your mind, and make you waste heaps of money of stuff you don't need...this could make people homeless if their not careful. By being cohersed into buying junk, people might not be left with enough money to pay for their bills.

This is wrong.