How to create effective retail activations through the undertanding of neuroscience and consumer behaviour
One of the most significant impacts on the retail industry will be the use of neuroscience in all aspects of the supply chain (Todd 2015). From online shopping to store navigation, product packaging to deliveries to the consumer – retailers are desperate to find new ways into the mind of the consumer. This can be to the point of retailers creating decisions for the consumer, trying to engineer the situations for consumer choice. Whilst this approach makes total sense from the retailer’s perspective, it is not a plausible output for neuroscience. Neuroscience cannot help retailers anticipate or predict consumer choices. What it can do is create a deeper understanding of the processes behind a consumer choice.
Neuroscience is the study of the brain and the central nervous system, and explores answers to three central questions. What networks are involved in certain cognitive or motor processes, such as memory, attention, sight, or coordination? How do these different networks work together to achieve cognitive or motor processes? How do we, as humans, put our world together, and what are the neurobiological drivers behind our actions, choices, and perceptions?
Neuroscience has mainly operated within academic and clinical contexts, examining neurodegenerative diseases, traumatic brain injuries, and attempting to understand brain abnormalities in autism spectrum disorder, depression, and schizophrenia. With the newfound mobility of knowledge between disciplines, industry is asking more and more questions of neuroscience, however some of these are outside the discipline’s potential as it currently stands. The brain networks and their dialogue with the central nervous system is so complex that we only have had the technology to map one percent of the brain and recreate one second of activity (Sparkes 2014).This means that any claims of predicting consumer behaviour or choice is out of the remit of legitimate science. What neuroscience can shed light on, is how the brain interacts and makes sense of the world, it can explain the relationships between behaviour and brain networks, and it can help us understand what it is to be human.
In regards to the retail industry it can help set design heuristics for the retail environment that ensure the customer is getting the most optimised experience of the brand. Secondly, it can help us understand how the consumer is cognitively and structurally changing due to environmental factors, like digital technology. This allows us to help brands adapt their communication to the emerging cultural environment.
The science in this report is based on a range of studies, which have been reviewed and identified as being of sound quality, based on scientific methods, and robust pools of participants. The science has been translated and contextualised to a retail audience for better comprehension and application.