People buy with their own eyes

One of the most interesting and fundamental tool for the Neuromarketing techniques is an eye track. Researchers collect eye-tracking data by using special eye-trackers, which can detect the location of the pupil of the eye in fragments of time (Cerf & Garcia-Garcia, 2017).

There are several types of mobile devices for exploring the environment on the market, which are remote and headmounted eye-trackers. Different types of stationary (remote) eye-tracking devices can be used for testing the information on the desktop screen. The system of headmounted eye-tracker includes a world camera and a special camera for analysing pupil movements (iMotions, 2019).

The eye-tracking technology allows to analyse different patterns of eyes’ movements (fixing item, saccade linear mapping, duration settings etc.). The aim of using eye-track in Neuromarketing is based on theories of “perceptual fluency” and “conceptual fluency”. These concepts are explaining the reason to remember a brand on the unconcious level after being in contact with it, because all visual information comes to brain through the eyes (Valencia, 2017).

Eye-tracking technology can help to analyse where consumers look at and what kind of individual products they examine. It’s important to recognise what catches consumers’ attention, because human brain automatically fixes the eyes on the area, which is going to analyse. Because of it is so useful to create a visible advertisement or put the product on the right place on the shelf.  

Eye-tracking data are very similar to EEG or fMRT data in its making, but it easier to dissect. Because of it, this technology is becoming more and more useful among marketing managers and can be ideal for different studies (Cerf & Garcia-Garcia, 2017).

Yulia Prozherina, Ph.D. in Neurophysiology,
MBA, NMSBA member