Electroencephalography Studies on Marketing Stimuli: A Literature Review and Future Research Agenda

Abstract

This study aims to explore the application of electroencephalography (EEG) tools in examining latent consumer behavior, emphasizing emotions, attention, preferences, memory, and decision-making in response to various marketing stimuli (e.g., products, pricing, branding, and advertising). This study adopts a thematic review approach, employing a systematic literature review methodology (e.g., Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses [PRISMA] protocol). Our investigation unearthed 155 articles from the Scopus and Web of Science databases, spanning 2010–2023. The findings reveal a marked increase in EEG-related research, underscoring its effectiveness in examining consumers' reactions to marketing stimuli. This rise reflects a growing recognition among researchers of EEG's ability to address marketing research challenges, particularly in advertising, product development, branding, and pricing. EEG research predominantly targets advertising, followed by products, branding, and pricing, and delves deeply into consumer behavior aspects such as emotional, cognitive, and decision-making processes. The study further highlights EEG's cutting-edge potential to predict ad success, optimize product features, and refine pricing strategies with unprecedented accuracy. Specifically, emotion-based ads profoundly influence decision-making, offering novel insights into consumers' emotional engagement. This study emphasizes EEG's groundbreaking role in minimizing verbal biases and revealing consumer behavior, which is increasingly recognized as critical for developing more effective marketing strategies. This review underscores EEG's theoretical and practical contributions and offers pioneering insights into marketing effectiveness and consumer engagement. Future research should expand on these findings, exploring product neurodesign and social neuroscience to push the frontiers of consumer behavior analysis.