By David Jenkin

The application of neuroscience for market research is rapidly gaining traction. In South Africa, Momentum has become the first corporate in the financial services sector to fully utilise it. The company has created the Market Insights and Neuro Discoveries (MI.ND) Lab, situated close to their offices in Centurion.

Last week, a small group was invited to a press launch event that included an interactive experience to demonstrate how Momentum is using the science to advance and utilise their understanding of consumer behaviour.

The facility features a “neuropod”, which houses cutting-edge tools for measuring physiological responses, including electroencephalogram (EEG), to measure electrical activity of the brain indicating negative or positive emotional engagement; electrocardiography (ECG), to monitor heart rate; electrodermal activity (EDA), for measuring fluctuations in sweat levels; and facial electromyography (EMG), for reading micro-expressions. Eye tracking is also a key aspect, enabling heat mapping to determine where viewers focus their attention on an advertisement. The neuroscientific data gained from participants is intended to complement other more traditional qualitative research methods such as focus groups.

Stephano Radaelli, consumer and market insights manager, introduced the concept of behavioural economics to attendees, which is a marriage of behavioural sciences and economics, and explained its value for the financial services sector. “With behavioural economics, we’re able to improve our client engagement, improving our client experience at the end of the day.” Better client engagement ultimately leads to better financial wellness for a client, he said. “The ultimate purpose of why we would use behavioural economics is really in the client’s best interests.”

He then explained and demonstrated techniques used by marketers such as priming, which involves guiding consumers in a specific direction using subtle pointers, or the decoy effect, which uses two anchoring points to drive consumers towards choosing a third middle option. “What we’ve seen is that financial advisors have been using this to a great degree, and very successfully, by presenting clients with three different products to drive clients towards picking a solution that talks to their specific needs. And that is how we can start using these effects more successfully to drive financial wellness.”

Dr Fränzo Friedrich, head of client marketing and communication at Momentum Retail, explained that the company’s journey in neuroscience began with the realisation that there was a need for more consumer marketing, as the public knew who Momentum was but not what they had to offer. “As a result of that, we realised that we didn’t really have corporate identity guidelines for response-driven marketing … The first thing that we did through the MI.ND Lab was to establish templates for agencies around print executions, radio, television, outdoor – the traditional stuff. We asked how do we get people to understand what we’re trying to position to them and how do we get them to respond to it?”

He said that extensive work was done to create these templates and establish parameters, such as a limit of 160 words in a print ad to avoid readers disengaging, specific ways to use colours, and the placement of the call to action. “That was the first thing that was a really big win for us, because it made the process of the creative work much quicker,” he noted. They then addressed the decision-making process regarding the types of executions used, basing those decisions on science and removing ‘gut feel’ from the equation.

Another key function of the lab is to create performance benchmarks on the ‘soft stuff’ such as creative executions, Dr Friedrich explained, which traditionally is very difficult to determine. “We needed to find a model to keep ourselves accountable through the whole process. So whether it is for sales, the creative execution, the additional PR value, or the client satisfaction numbers – for all of those numbers we’ve created the response metric model. So now we can see what effect bad creative execution has on responses, and that’s a fantastic thing for us.”

Dr Friedrich added that it had also been determined that Momentum’s communication was too technical and a simplified language style guide was created through research which afforded them unique insights.

For more information, visit www.momentum.co.za.