Neuromarketing: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Studying Consumer Decision-Making Process

Decision-making can be defined as nothing but a process through which it is possible to make a decision. We, both as individuals and consumers, make hundreds of decisions daily. These decisions can be very different in nature: easy or complex, cautious or instinctive, social or economic, successful or unsuccessful. Even though each decision is different, our final goal is to improve our current situation, thus we attempt to choose the best solution (for us) between the alternatives available.

Research shows that the outcome of our decisions does not originate from a single factor, on the contrary, it is modulated by several elements (e.g., social, economic, individual, psychological, and biological). Thus, several disciplines can and do contribute to study of decision-making process from different perspectives. For instance, the notion of decision has been widely debated and analyzed in marketing as the result of the social, cultural, economic, and individual aspects that influence customers during the buying decision process. On the other hand, psychology focuses on exogenous and endogenous factors of the decision-making process. Particularly important in psychological studies is the relationship between cognitive and emotional functions. Similarly, neuroscience investigates the physiological and neural aspects of decision-making. Neuroscience studies analyze emotions as a direct component of the decision-making process. Overall, the study of the decision-making process can benefit from a multidisciplinary approach that combines knowledge and theory from different disciplines.

Consumer Neuroscience (a.k.a Neuromarketing) promises to revolutionize how we study and investigate the decision-making process of consumers. In fact, consumer neuroscience is an interdisciplinary field at the intersection of marketing, psychology, and neuroscience. Consumer Neuroscience use tools and theory of these disciplines to study the decision-making process that drive consumer behaviors. This new discipline can provide us with a more accurate estimation of consumer decisions and preferences about products and services. Thus, consumer neuroscience could help to develop a single and unified theory of the decision-making process based on findings achieved by marketeers, psychologists, and neuroscientists. To achieve this, it is important to understand how consumers make decisions about different marketing factors such as pricing, branding, product development, and advertising.

The aim of this Research Topic is to disseminate knowledge on the opportunities and challenges of using consumer neuroscience tools to study consumers’ decision-making processes and to improve marketing strategies.

For this Research Topic, we encourage submissions that combine academic and commercial research, thus we will consider both theoretical and empirical research, qualitative and quantitative, and review papers. The aim is to contribute to the validation of consumer neuroscience methods and theories and the identification of best practices to integrate consumer neuroscience tools in business.

Authors are encouraged to submit manuscripts in the following areas:

• The applications and challenges of Consumer Neuroscience tools to study consumer decision-making process;

• Neuromarketing techniques applied to marketing strategies;

• Consumer neuroscience methods applied to pricing;

• Consumer neuroscience methods applied to branding;

• Consumer neuroscience methods applied to product development;

• Consumer neuroscience methods applied to advertising;

• Comparison between Neuromarketing and Neuroeconomics in the study of consumer decision-making process.