In The Minority Report, a science-fiction movie based on the short story by Philip K. Dick, the year is 2054 and protagonist, Chief John Anderton, is the leader of the Precrime programme. This law enforcement programme relies on brain data transmitted by three precognitive mutants (Precogs) who can predict premeditated murders before they occur. The Precogs, or cyborgs by virtue of their organism/machine connectivity, are kept in a drug-induced dreamlike state in a floatation tank. Their brains are hardwired to a computer network monitoring their neurological activity, and their visions are streamed to a set of screens via the medical imaging process of optical tomography. To justify instrumental treatment of the Precogs, Anderton states: âItâs better if you donât think of them as human.â The moment the Precogs detect a future crime their brainwaves transmit the name of the victim and perpetrator to a computer. The data are transferred to another machine that etches the information onto wooden balls; the colour of the ball depends on the type of crime to be committed. The Precrime unit is then deployed to apprehend the would-be perpetrators before the crime can occur. The question of accuracy of predictive technology arises when Anderton is framed for a murder he will not commit.
The theme of predictive technology is recurrent in the movie. It also arises in a scene during which Andertonâs eyes are scanned biometrically and he is greeted by personalised advertising billboards as he walks through a mall. Identification of consumers, here, seems to occur primarily through retinal scans. One can assume that extracted consumer data are then matched to names and other identifiers in a global database much like current big data processes of personalisation. These data analytics allow for the identification and categorisation of individuals and groups as automated data profiles which are then matched to relevant products.
When the movie was first released in 2002 observers claimed that such depictions of interactive predictive advertisements were far-fetched. However, it did not take long for rapid advancements in new media marketing to prove them wrong. Inspired by the movie, in 2015 tech start-up Immersive Labs (IMRSV) was one of the first North American companies that actively sought to make targeted billboard advertising as ubiquitous as targeted online advertising.1 IMRSV aimed to install small cameras into existing billboards and retail signage that would then have the capacity to display advertisements according to consumer type. Acquired by Kairos, a âhuman analyticsâ company, the facial detection platform developed by IMRSV is presented as a âcamera enabled software solution that gathers continuous audience analytics, bringing online measurement to offline engagements.â2 The software identifies consumer attributes based on factors such as sex, estimated age, race and attention time, using these data to adapt advertising content to targeted individuals.
Around the same time, responsive billboards emerging in the United States displayed a personalised advertising campaign for the GMC Acadia sports utility vehicle. In collaboration with several companies such as Posterscope USA, EYE Corp Media, Engage M1 and Quividi, the digital billboard combined facial recognition technology and pre-programmed advertising strategies to push tailored responses to consumers.3 More recently, Estimote, a leading player in sensor development for the Internet of Things (IoT), has been developing proximity technologies (beacons and sensors) referred to as ânearables.â These devices are placed in strategic areas in stores to detect human presence and behaviours, retrieving content connected to a userâs profile or micro-location derived from smart phone data. The nearables trigger pre-programmed actions that deliver contextual and personalised experiences which are displayed either as a notification or directly in a smart phone application. Video screens within range can also respond with information relevant to the target audience.4
Despite these incredible technological advances, the advertising industry continues to search for increasingly precise methods of mining data from consumers. Now their target is what they refer to as âsubconsciousâ (or unconscious) terrain. With the aid of neuroscience research, brain imaging and other biometric tools, neuromarketers are seeking to âmine the brain so they can blow your mind with products you deeply desire.â5
The Promise of Concrete Facts
A contemporary form of market research, neuromarketing uses brain- and bio-imaging technologies to track consumersâ sensorimotor, cognitive and affective responses to an advertising stimulus. Marketers use these as aids for understanding the nuances within messages that distinguish between those that are more or less effective in mobilising a desired response. Proponents have argued that personalised advertising derived from brain data has the potential to go much further than traditional focus groups and become more efficient and profitable by extracting marketing-relevant information from the consumerâs subconscious. The following text bytes by neuromarketing companies are indicative of the popular claims to access the subconscious workings of the consumer:
Every marketers dream is to speak to this subconscious and make sure it flags their product, in the right light, to the brainâs owner on their behalf. If you want your website, product, packaging, advertising and brand experiences to speak directly to the subconscious emotional brain, then you need to measure these experiences directly. (Simple Usability, 2018)
By going beyond empirical data, studying more than 50,000 brands from around the world and employing recent developments in neuroscience to delve into âthe black boxâ of the mind of the consumer, we discovered a direct link between financial performance and fundamental human values. (Millward Brown, 2017)
Neuro-Insight analyses ad creative to assess effectiveness, using neuroscience to understand audiencesâ subconscious responses. (Neuro-Insight, 2016)
One of neuromarketingâs early adopters, Clint Kilts, the scientific director of the BrightHouse Institute, claims that traditional focus groups âare plagued by a basic flaw of human psychology: people often do not know their own minds,â which is a common assumption in the industry. Brain imaging, on the other hand, âoffers the promise of concrete facts â an unbiased glimpse at a consumerâs mind in action.â This expansion of neuroimaging technologies into diverse commercial settings has heralded what SharpBrains chief executive Alvaro Fernandez refers to as a âpervasive neuro-technology age.â6
While neuromarketing builds on traditional forms of market research comprising both physiological measurement and communicative interactions, its technological resources have been expanded to incorporate advanced neuroimaging techniques to measure, collect and interpret consumer responses to stimuli that are believed to be more accurate and reliable as predictors of behaviour than self-report.7 When neurophysiological data are collected, they are analysed using automatic algorithms and interpreted by a market researcher. The reporting phase aims to produce detailed accounts, often including raw data and insights such as metrics, key performance indicators and data visualisations to inform advertising strategies aimed at manipulating consumer behaviour. A range of high-profile brands have turned to these new research techniques, but many of these companies have tended to keep their use of these tools out of the public eye. In fact, as neuromarketing expert Roger Dooley explains: âMany brands use some kind of neurotechnique but very few will talk about it, as itâs scary for consumers.â Steve Miller, co-founder of Scientific Learning, shares the same sentiment: âWith any project you work on, you keep the name out the discussion.â8
Although the present work focuses on the commercial dimension, it is worth noting that neuromarketing strategies also comprise political-oriented techniques similar to those of Cambridge Analytica, in the way the company used technological platforms to target and influence the US presidential election and UKâs Brexit referendum. This technique comprised the use of personalised political advertisements based on psychological profiling of voters.9 While the practices of Cambridge Analytica were not only deemed unethical but also illegal, resulting in the business closing its doors recently, many neuromarketing companies have been and are still engaging in psycho-social profiling of audiences and deployment of targeted political marketing tactics into various media. This practice is referred to as âneuropoliticsâ: furtive behavioural microtargeting for political campaigns.10 As an online article highlights:
By reading the responses taken from people linked to fMRI or EEG machines, neuromarketers and their clients aim to optimize stimuli (political messages) and reaction in consumersâ brains and drive their (voting) decisions.11
Similar behavioural interventions are being made at the governmental level through ânudgeâ practices as a corrective to boost economic performance, and, where pos...