What will neuroscience do for advertisers?

This article evaluates neuroscience, and argues that we are only at the beginning of its application to advertising: we should therefore be cautious about big claims, but open-minded about its future potential.

What will neuroscience do for advertisers?

Tim Ambler

Neuroscience will not make the advertiser's job any easier. It will sweep in and out of fashion, but understanding how ads change minds, and how minds change behaviour, are topics too big to go away in the manner of fads like media-neutral planning. This article aims to guide the advertiser between the rocks of unreasonable expectations and the hard places of cynical dismissal. Neuroscience will do a great deal for advertisers and some things are valuable now.

The first section deals with myths and nonsense. The second section looks briefly at the...

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