Pondering the implications of biometric research.

There’s this (I think it’s) cool (anyway) analogy I’ve bantered around for years about the inexactitude of advertising. It goes something like: This stuff’s not brain surgery. It’s way harder. If only you could just reach in there and jiggle the purchase mechanism or flip the switch for brand preference. Because, compared to brain surgery, our tools for changing minds are clumsy, blunt and imprecise. We have truth and beauty, rationale and emotional appeals delivered through an omnipresent but ultimately dismissible range of media. And so, besides making products chemically or emotionally addictive (i.e.: tobacco, booze, coffee, People), there’s still no proven way to physically make somebody like your brand enough to buy your product.

At least not yet.
Then I come across this article about companies that track and measure brainwaves and other biologic data in response to ad messages. I knew this kind of thing had been dabbled in. But the closest I’d come were vague references to eye-tracking studies that purport to identify where people look while flipping through magazines. And of course, like all agency creatives, I’ve done my time behind the one-way focus group mirror bloating myself with Peanut M&M’s and trembling with perverse voyeuristic distress as the proverbial man-on-the street shredded my creative ideas. Haven’t we all.
But this is different. We’re talking electrodes glued to the head here. Which means, when you ask someone how they feel about an ad there’s no wading through the inevitable minefield of ego and posturing. You just monitor brain activity, heart rate, skin temperature (salivation?), breathing and blinking and apply a few algorithms to calculate emotional response. Then, I guess, print a receipt.
Surely I’m not the only one who finds this way more than just a little creepy?
Now, as you may have guessed, I’m no big fan of ad testing in general. Beyond the unique form of soul crushing, creativity-trampling torture mentioned above, there’s something just plain wrong about applying objective scientific methods to something so inherently subjective. And I’m sorry, but people perusing ads in a natural environment are not simultaneously searching for something seemingly intelligent to say about them. Which is why I find traditional ad testing about as helpful as re-explaining your jokes.
But brainwaves?
Do we really want marketers to better understand how to navigate our neurological circuitry? Not that they don’t already. But we can adapt natural defense mechanisms to outside stimuli. We can consciously defend ourselves against the blunt instruments. It’s the silent dog whistle that scares me. The TV spot that haunts me for reasons I can’t explain. The weakness for a product that never satisfies but remains inexplicably irresistible.
Plus, what happens when they get really good at this stuff? Forget warrantless wiretapping. I can see the bumper sticker now: P&G OUT OF MY CEREBELLUM. And what’s the new Nielsen box? An implant?
Okay, maybe I’m overreacting. (I suppose my brainwaves are off the Richter scale right now and my hi-tech mood ring has gone all day glow.)
Most likely, as with all “new approaches” to ad testing, even neurological brainwave mapping will accomplish pretty much the same thing as all other forms of pseudo-scientific creative research. It will confirm the client’s hunch that the logo should be bigger and the product should be mentioned more often. And earlier.
Still, if you happen to notice me salivating involuntarily, please, tell me.