Neuromarketing says your brain on print is happier, buys more

Neuromarketing.com reports that a major contribution to understanding print’s new superpower comes from the emerging field of neuromarketing science.

Neuromarketing.com is a neuromarketing agency with a science-based approach to increasing sales. Their new report shows that print is winning the emotional battle for reader love, citing a recent neuroscientific study created by Temple University Consumer Neuroscience researchers for the U.S. Post Office. 

An article by Tom Dooley, author of  Friction (McGraw Hill, April 26, 2019) and Brainfluence (Wiley) and host of the Brainfluence Podcast,  takes a deep dive into the recent brain science of how people respond to print advertising, versus digital advertising. 

Temple scientists used various scientific methods to test ad recall and emotional reactions to print versus digital ads in a sample of 56 people while looking at different print and digital ads.

Print wins 5, ties 3

The results are outlined below, showing physical print outperformed digital in five of nine ad effectiveness measurements. Another three were tied.

Quoting from Dooley, these findings include:

• Digital ads were processed more quickly.
• Paper ads engaged viewers for more time.
• Subjects reported no preference for either medium and absorbed about the same amount of information from both media.
• However, a week later, subjects showed greater emotional response and memory for physical media ads.
• Physical ads caused more activity in brain areas associated with value and desire.”

The MRI Study:  Brains on print more likely to buy

Not to get too far into the scientific weeds, but the neuroscience of marketing has come a long way. The researchers put a subsection of the people they studied into an MRI machine a week after exposure to the original print and digital ads.

When asked about print ads, the areas of the brain associated with purchasing behavior lit up, while digital ads had virtually no response.

Temple’s earlier research has shown that “the ventral striatum is the brain structure whose activity most predictive of future purchasing,”  a phenomenon also covered in Dooley’s podcast entitled, Scientists Get Closer to The “Buy Button.”

Dooley’s takeaway is that print will drive digital sales, as these activated purchasers motivated by print move online for further research and to make a purchase.  The Print/digital mix would be especially important for high-emotion products, distinctive brands, and products that “benefit from compelling images.”