Here at the lab we research and demonstrate an array of technologies that measure consumer interactions with marketing and products. We can measure how long you pay attention to an ad, we can measure how long you touched an individual product on a supermarket shelf, and we can even measure your facial expressions and head movements. But we’re really excited about a new product in development from Ireland’s BrainMeld Industries which we’ve been experimenting with the last couple weeks. Meet the BrainMeld CI1:
The CI1 is effectively a RF antenna rigged to transmit at a very specific range of frequencies that were determined after years of fMRI research at Ireland’s top universities and beyond. They had discovered special emotional centers in the brain’s frontal cortex that correlate strongly with consumers’ brand preferences and purchase intent. By stimulating these centers in a very specific way, researchers at BrainMeld were able to affect test subjects’ opinions of tested brands and purchase intent by up to 20% after just casual exposure to the equipment.
Here at the lab in our trials, we set up a couple CI1’s to see if they would perform as advertised, and we were impressed with the results. We set the gear up in a closet behind a wall in our lobby, and set it to stimulate increased purchase intent for Honey Nut Cheerios. We waited a couple days, but then began to notice that a handful of folks in our office had begun to eat Honey Nut Cheerios at their desk. Even though it was only about 3 people in an office of 100, that was 3 more than before. By the end of the week there were 8 people doing it. We casually asked a couple of them why they had started eating cereal at their desk, and they each said something along the lines of “I just sorta felt like it.”
It’s a pretty cool new frontier in marketing. We’ll post more on this topic in the coming weeks as we explore new uses for this technology.
