Neuroscience is becoming an increasingly hot topic among marketers – and has now, officially, reached its "dipping point". That's according to Thom Noble, founder of NeuroStrata, who presented at a Warc event focusing on the technique in London this week. "It's 'dipping' in the sense of dipping their toe in the water," he said. "Clients I talked to about this 10 years ago thought I was crazy, but now they are asking me to tell them more about [neuro] stuff. They want to have a go."

And, Noble suggested, this group is increasingly including large ad agencies as well as clients. Planners in particular are showing interest in neuroscience – allying implicit research techniques with their (more traditional) study of the psychology of consumers.

Also speaking at the event was Michael E Smith, VP at Nielsen Neuro. His focus was on the specific areas of the creative process that can be assisted by neuro techniques. "Variations in the creative, as measured by neuroscience, can have a big impact on sales," he suggested. "People are now leveraging that to optimise the creative before it ever goes to market in order to see those benefits."

And Smith agreed with Noble that the market had undergone a fundamental shift over the past couple of years. "It's now becoming a routine deliverable with some of our larger clients," he added. "And these CPG companies are taking it from something they'd use only in their insight lab at headquarters to something they'd use throughout the world. It's changing from an exploratory activity to a routine, mainstream activity."

That said, you'd be forgiven for not being completely up-to-date with latest trends and themes in the neuromarketing space. Warc subscribers can get a quick primer with the links on our dedicated topic page, or read Noble's piece in the latest issue of Admap on the application of neuroscience in marketing.

And, if you'd like to know more, both of the speakers have participated in recent Warc webinars. The first discusses how to make the most of neuro techniques, while the second focuses on neuro trends.