In an e-mail interview last month, Duane Varan - chief research officer, the Disney Media and Advertising Lab; and executive director, Audience Research Labs, Murdoch University - fielded a handful of my questions following the release in March of the first output from the ARF NeuroStandards Collaboration Project. The ongoing ARF effort, of which Varan is a part, brings together academicians, neuromarketing vendors and corporate researchers to give “media, marketing and advertising researchers more and better information to evaluate the opportunities that these new methods offer.”

Vendors participating in the ARF group include MSW Research, Gallup and Robinson, Innerscope, Mindlab International, NeuroCompass, Neuro-Insight, Sands Research and Sensory Logic. Corporate participants include Campbell Soup Company, Dentsu, Colgate-Palmolive, MillerCoors, GM, American Express, Hershey’s, Chase, Clorox, Warner Bros. Entertainment and Starcom.

Why do you think there is so much current interest in neuromarketing research? Is it a result of dissatisfaction with existing methods?

Varan: “Yes - in part. But the bigger issue is that advertisers are increasingly coming to terms with the emotional dimension of branding and verbal measures clearly fall short in this regard. The new methods present great promise in better understanding the emotional dimensions of marketing. They also give us access to continuous - i.e., second-by-second - measurement of consumer response.”

What has led to the explosion in firms offering neuromarketing research products and services?

“The media landscape has become hyper-dynamic - it is in a state of perpetual change. Advertisers are desperate for tangible measures to better understand the specifics of how their messaging works. The high level of control available through the new methods helps tease out effects in a way which brings greater certainty to the market.”

What steps can corporate researchers take to make themselves more effective users of neuromarketing research products and services?

“The biggest challenge a client faces is that they don’t have appropriate expertise in-house to effectively understand the new services - which results in them having to trust the vendor almost entirely. This is a very dangerous position for both client and vendor to find themselves in. It also means that key contributions from the client, who best understands the brand, are often missed. This is precisely why access to the ARF’s new Expert Review Network is so critical - it provides a mechanism for clients to adopt independent expertise as needed.”

What are some questions that corporate researchers should ask of prospective providers of neuromarketing research products and services? Or, put another way, what kind of due diligence should corporate researchers do on a prospective provider?

“Unfortunately, the issues are very complex and will be very specific to each method and each research question. So it is difficult to paint a set of questions that could universally apply. Resources like the Expert Review Network can help deal with the nuance of each unique set of circumstances.

“But you are absolutely right in asking what kind of due diligence clients should rely on. What it should not be is based on boasting rights of an advisory board membership - would advisory board members tell clients if there were problems? Or on unverified claims made by vendors. Whatever the process, it should be independent.

“Given the magnitude of many of the deals that are being made, some form of independent due diligence is clearly needed. The Expert Review Network, at the very least, provides an easy-to-access solution to this issue.”

In general, how should corporate researchers view neuromarketing research? A new frontier? A panacea? A new wrinkle?

“Clearly, any client tackling the new media landscape needs to gain much greater precision in understanding how consumers interact with their brand. Gone are the days when you could simply machine-gun the audience with your message. Each impression is now far too valuable to waste. So research is critical in navigating a path forward. There are a variety of new tools coming into the market - another good example is set-top-box measurement - which are greatly improving our precision in measuring impact and bio/neuromarketing presents us with exciting new opportunities.

“I think that brands that sit on the sidelines are putting themselves at risk. If their competitors are engaging with the new methods they will probably gain insights that give them market advantage. By the same token, I think that brands that engage uncritically lack wisdom and could easily find themselves investing on misguided insights. The key is to engage - but rise to the challenge and make sure that this engagement is meaningful and appropriate. That’s precisely what the ARF is now facilitating.

“The question is not if a brand should engage with the new methods, it’s how it should do so.”

What, in your view, are some of the strengths of neuromarketing research?

“I think the greatest strength is its ability to access variables that otherwise can’t be accessed. With emotion, in particular, something gets lost in the translation of emotion into words. Bio/neuro measures give us access to new frontiers.”

What are some of the weaknesses?

“There is too much fascination with the technology and not enough with the rigor of the design. The technology enables exciting possibilities - but given the complexities, the technology has to be used appropriately. This is far more complex than I think people realize. It highlights the need for independent review.”

What are some of the next steps planned for the ARF NeuroStandards Collaboration? What will its next output be?

“The ARF now has a forum specific to this area of research. That forum provides a community that can continue to engage with the issues and advance the area. A key priority for the forum will be to articulate objectives for NeuroStandards 2.0.”