What the scanner studies did show
In the mid 2000s, McClure and colleagues asked people to taste cola while lying in a brain scanner. When the drink was labelled as a famous brand, both stated preference and activity in certain brain areas shifted compared with an unlabelled sip. The label did more than decorate the product. It changed the experience.
A few years later, Plassmann, O'Doherty, Shiv and Rangel gave volunteers the same wine at different stated prices. The wine labelled with the higher price was rated more pleasant, and activity rose in an area linked to pleasure. Both studies are genuine and well known. Both also involved small groups in a lab, not shoppers in a store. Findings like this are why pricing psychology is worth studying carefully, and testing.
Why a pretty brain image proves less than it seems
A scan lights up regions, and it is tempting to say that a region means a feeling. Poldrack, in the mid 2000s, pointed out the trap. The same area becomes active during many different mental states, so working backwards from activity to a specific thought, called reverse inference, is shaky.
This is why you should be wary of anyone who promises to reveal what your customers truly want from a scan. The honest finding is narrower: context such as price and brand can shift how an experience is rated. That is useful, and it is also something you can check without any equipment. It is the kind of finding marketing psychology can use directly.
What this means for a berry stand on a country road
Picture a small berry grower with a farm gate stand near Abbotsford. The scan studies suggest that presentation changes how fruit tastes in the mind: a hand-lettered sign naming the variety and the field it came from may feel different from an anonymous flat of berries. You do not need a laboratory to find out whether that is true for your customers. Claims about colour psychology deserve the same scrutiny.
Put up the sign with the variety and field for one week, and the plain version for another, keeping the weather and the traffic as similar as you can. Count the flats sold. Even the Von Restorff effect, where one item that differs gets remembered, can be tried this way with a single boxed sign. It is a crude test, but it asks the right question: does the way I present this change what people do?
Cheap, honest tests for your website and ads
Online, the same idea has a name: split testing. Show half your visitors one headline and half another, then compare enquiries. Subject lines in email marketing work the same way. So do two versions of an ad. None of this needs a brain scan, because you are measuring behaviour directly, which is the thing you actually care about.
Be honest about sample size. A handful of visits can swing either way by chance, so run a test until you have enough enquiries to see a steady pattern, and change one thing at a time. Good conversion tracking makes sure each enquiry is counted once. If you do not have the traffic for a clean test, ask a few customers what stopped them from booking. That short conversation often teaches more than a chart.
A short list of things to try
Start small and keep a notebook. Write down the change, why you expect it to work and the date, so that in two months you remember what you actually tried. The conversion rate calculator can turn your visit and enquiry counts into rates you can compare from one test to the next.
If a vendor sells you a neuromarketing package, ask what decision it will change and how you will know it worked. A good answer names a behaviour you can count. A vague answer about subconscious desire is your cue to walk away. The growth check is a quick way to pick which stage to test first.
- Pick one page where visitors leave and write a plain guess about why
- Make two versions of its headline and show each to half your visitors
- Label products with the facts customers ask about most, such as variety, origin or maker
- Ask five recent customers what almost stopped them from contacting you
- Record each test, your guess and the outcome in one shared document
Be sceptical as the tools get fancier
Eye-tracking and attention-prediction tools are getting cheaper, and some will land in marketing software before 2027. They can show where a page draws the eye, which is helpful. They still cannot tell you why someone chose to call. Keep the habit of checking any prediction against what real visitors do.
- 01Treat attention maps as hints, not answers
- 02Confirm any finding with a live test
- 03Keep notes on what each tool got right
Questions & answers
It is the use of brain and body measurements, such as scans, to study how people respond to ads, brands and prices. The research side is real. The sales side often claims more certainty than the evidence supports, so check what a provider can actually prove.
Not directly. Reading a specific thought from brain activity, called reverse inference, is unreliable because the same regions are active in many mental states. Scans can show that context changes an experience, but they cannot hand you a customer's wish list.
Almost never. A scan study costs far more than it would return for a local firm. Testing two headlines, two signs or two subject lines gives you direct evidence about your own customers, and it can start this week with the traffic you already have.
Run simple split tests, watch where visitors leave, and talk to recent customers. Change one thing at a time and compare real enquiries. Conversion rate optimization applies the same discipline at scale, and a free marketing audit is a good starting point.
