The application of mobile fNIRS to “shopper neuroscience” – first insights from a merchandising communication study
ISSN: 0309-0566
Article publication date: 31 January 2018
Issue publication date: 20 February 2018
Abstract
Purpose
This study is the first to examine consumer’s neural reaction to different merchandising communication strategies at the point-of-sale (PoS) by applying functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). By doing so, the purpose of this study is to extend consumer neuroscience to retail and shopper research.
Design/methodology/approach
Two experiments were conducted in which 36 shoppers were exposed to a realistic grocery shopping scenario while their brain haemodynamics were measured using mobile fNIRS.
Findings
Results revealed that mobile fNIRS appears a valid method to study neural activation of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) in the field of “shopper neuroscience”. More precisely, results demonstrated that the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) might be crucial for processing and predicting merchandising communication strategy effectiveness.
Research limitations/implications
This research gives evidence that certain regions of the PFC, in particular the OFC and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), are crucial to process and evaluate merchandising communication strategies.
Practical implications
The current work opens a promising new avenue for studying and understanding shopper’s behaviour. Mobile fNIRS enables marketing management to collect neural data from shoppers and analyse neural activity associated with real-life settings. Furthermore, based on a better understanding of shoppers’ perceptual processes of communication strategies, marketers can design more effective merchandising communication strategies.
Originality/value
The study is the first to implement the innovative, mobile neuroimaging method of fNIRS to a PoS setting. It, therefore, opens up the promising field of “shopper neuroscience”.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This paper forms part of a special section on Neuromarketing.
The authors would like to thank the guest editor Terry Daugherty and the editorial manager Leif Brandes, the two reviewers who provided insightful comments on earlier drafts of this paper, and Tim Eberhardt for data collection. The project was supported by funds of the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL) based on a decision of the Parliament of the Federal Republic of Germany via the Federal Office for Agriculture and Food (BLE) under the innovation support programme (FKZ: 2817203413).
Citation
Krampe, C., Strelow, E., Haas, A. and Kenning, P. (2018), "The application of mobile fNIRS to “shopper neuroscience” – first insights from a merchandising communication study", European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 52 No. 1/2, pp. 244-259. https://doi.org/10.1108/EJM-12-2016-0727
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited