Rhythms of decisions. New insights into consumer neuroscience.

In recent years, the intuition of introducing neuroscience techniques into marketing research has given rise to an emerging field named consumer neuroscience, or neuromarketing when related to business applications. Collecting data about consumers to design and promote new products/services suitable for them is one of the main goals of marketing research. Also, segmenting the target audience and selecting the modalities to communicate with the user base is a critical process for practitioners. The integration of neuroscience protocols and tools in marketing research can help make this process smoother and more efficient. Drawing the perimeter of the current potentials and limitations of consumer neuroscience, we will outline a possible novel contribution to the literature. Indeed, we will show how to resort to neurophysiology to gather information about consumers’ individual differences, in order to segment the target audience in a precision business perspective. To this purpose, three papers will be subsequently browsed. The first paper (Chapter 2) will offer an overview of the literature on consumer neuroscience. In particular, it focuses on the suitability of one of the most used techniques, i.e., electroencephalography, for marketing applications. In this work it is illustrated the core of the conceptual framework underpinning this doctoral thesis. The other two papers, respectively Chapter 3 and 4, will provide empirical evidence in support to the declared advantages of introducing profiling variables borrowed from neurophysiology into marketing. Individual differences based on chronotype and sleep quality are proposed as archetypical categories to segment consumers. Chapter 5 will close the circle of this doctoral dissertation by discussing the pro and cons of adopting the interdisciplinary methodology of consumer neuroscience in marketing and communication. We will highlight the most relevant managerial implications, and their plausible social impacts. Ethical and feasibility issues will be covered as well. Finally, an agenda for future research will be mapped out.