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sustainability
Review
Neuroimaging Techniques in Advertising Research: Main
Applications, Development, and Brain Regions and Processes
Ahmed H. Alsharif 1, * , Nor Zafir Md Salleh 1, Rohaizat Baharun 1, Alharthi Rami Hashem E 1,2,
Aida Azlina Mansor 3, Javed Ali 4and Alhamzah F. Abbas 1
Citation: Alsharif, A.H.; Salleh,
N.Z.M.; Baharun, R.; Hashem E, A.R.;
Mansor, A.A.; Ali, J.; Abbas, A.F.
Neuroimaging Techniques in
Advertising Research: Main
Applications, Development, and
Brain Regions and Processes.
Sustainability 2021,13, 6488. https://
doi.org/10.3390/su13116488
Academic Editor: Dragan Pamucar
Received: 23 April 2021
Accepted: 31 May 2021
Published: 7 June 2021
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Attribution (CC BY) license (https://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/
4.0/).
1
Azman Hashim International Business School, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Skudai 81310, Johor, Malaysia;
zafir@utm.my (N.Z.M.S.); m-rohaizat@utm.my (R.B.); r.aharese@tu.edu.sa (A.R.H.E.);
alhamzahfadhil@graduate.utm.my (A.F.A.)
2Department of Financial and Administrative Sciences, Ranyah University College, Taif University,
Taif 21944, Saudi Arabia
3Faculty of Business and Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Cawangan 42300, Selangor, Malaysia;
aidaazlina@uitm.edu.my
4Department of Business Administration, Sukkur IBA University, Airport Road, Sindh 65200, Pakistan;
Javedali@iba-suk.edu.pk
*Correspondence: ahmedalsharif07@gmail.com; Tel.: +60-1161271610
Abstract:
Despite the advancement in neuroimaging tools, studies about using neuroimaging tools
to study the impact of advertising on brain regions and processes are scant and remain unclear
in academic literature. In this article, we have followed a literature review methodology and a
bibliometric analysis to select empirical and review papers that employed neuroimaging tools in
advertising campaigns and to understand the global research trends in the neuromarketing domain.
We extracted and analyzed sixty-three articles from the Web of Science database to answer our study
questions. We found four common neuroimaging techniques employed in advertising research. We
also found that the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and the dorsolateral
prefrontal cortex play a vital role in decision-making processes. The OFC is linked to positive valence,
and the lateral OFC and left dorsal anterior insula related in negative valence. In addition, the
thalamus and primary visual area associated with the bottom-up attention system, whereas the top-
down attention system connected to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, parietal cortex, and primary
visual areas. For memory, the hippocampus is responsible for generating and processing memories.
We hope that this study provides valuable insights about the main brain regions and processes of
interest for advertising.
Keywords:
bibliometric analysis; neuromarketing; brain processes; advertising research; neuroimag-
ing tools; WoS database
1. Introduction
Concepts, techniques, and methods have remained unchanged for a long period in
marketing research. For example, marketing and advertising research relied on pen and
paper for collecting data [
1
,
2
]. However, changing market structures (e.g., offline to online
and globalization) demand new methods and techniques that are able to adapt to hyper-
competitive marketing. Thus, academia and industrial environments have investigated
how marketing research can benefit from integrating these techniques and methods to
develop advertising campaigns [
3
]. In 2002, a novel approach emerged and the term
“neuromarketing” was coined for the first time by Smidts [
4
] when he defined it as the
application of neuroscience technology in marketing research. However, the Bright House
company spread the neuromarketing concept widely by creating the functional magnetic
resonance imaging (fMRI) department for marketing purposes [
5
,
6
]. Neuromarketing is a
hybrid field that involves three main fields of neuroscience, psychology, and marketing [
7
].
Sustainability 2021,13, 6488. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13116488 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability
Sustainability 2021,13, 6488 2 of 25
Although the term “neuromarketing” appeared in 2002, some companies (e.g., Pepsi
company) were already used neuroimaging techniques such as electroencephalography
(EEG) before that, in order to solve marketing issues [
8
–
11
]. Neuroscientific research has
revealed that the unconscious is very clearly taking over the consumerism and decision-
making processes and thus, organizations and companies have been orienting their efforts
toward the unconscious mind of the consumer, so neuromarketing studies are largely
important for corporations [12].
Therefore, neuroscientific research has been expanded to study, describe, and explain
the neural correlates of consumer behavior (e.g., decision-making), cognitive processes
(e.g., memory, attention), and emotional processes (e.g., emotion) in advertising by using
neuromarketing techniques [
11
,
13
,
14
]. Neuromarketing techniques have been divided
into three clusters, as follows: (a) neuroimaging techniques such as functional magnetic
resonance imaging (fMRI), positron emission tomography (PET), functional near-infrared
spectroscopy (fNIRS), electroencephalography (EEG), magnetoencephalography (MEG),
steady skin topography (SST), and single photon emission tomography (SPET); (b) physio-
logical techniques such as, electrocardiogram (ECG), eye-tracking (ET), facial expression
recognition, and galvanic skin response (GSR); and (c) behavioral measurements such
as self-report, questionnaires, and observations [
13
]. Physiological techniques enable to
measure the physiological functions (e.g., respiration rate, heart-rate, pupil dilation, fixa-
tion, eye movements, blood pressure, facial muscle movement, and perspiration) when
consumers are exposed to advertisements [
15
]. Neuroimaging techniques enable to mea-
sure the cognitive and emotional processes toward advertisements [
11
,
16
,
17
]. Behavioral
measurements reveal information about consumer behavior, impressions, and concerns.
Self-report is one of the most widely used methods of collecting data about consumer states
(e.g., attitudes, feelings, and beliefs) [
13
]. However, how the main neuroimaging techniques
are employed in advertising campaigns is still unclear in academic literature. In addition,
there is a lack of studies of the vital role of cognitive and emotional processes in advertising.
Hence, this study presents the current scope, the most neuroimaging techniques applied in
advertising campaigns. Due to the complex nature in this domain, we carried out a review
of the literature to address the following research questions:
•RQ1: What is the most cited journal in the neuromarketing field?
•RQ2: What are the most employed neuroimaging tools in advertising research?
•RQ3: What are the brain processes and regions of interest for advertising research?
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, we explain the data
collection and methodologies that were employed in this study, including a bibliometrics
analysis. Section 3presents the bibliometric analysis, the most common neuroimaging
techniques applied in advertising, and the main brain regions and processes of interest for
advertising. Section 4presents the discussion and conclusion of our work.
2. Materials and Methods
To answer the three research questions, this study is divided into two folds. First, we
have used a bibliometric analysis to know the global trends in the neuromarketing topic
based on the outputs of publications such as the number of publications, citations, the
productivity of each country and academic institution, and assessing the advancement
in the scientific domain [
18
]. Second, we have followed the Preferred Reporting Items
for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) framework of Moher et al. [
19
]
to select empirical and review papers that employed neuroimaging tools in advertising
research, to fill the gap, and to understand the global research trends in a neuromarketing
field and the neural correlates of emotional and cognitive processes in advertising. The
research is characterized by extracting documents from the Web of Science (WoS) database
relevant to our study. However, we also followed instructions recommended by Block
and Fisch [
20
] to present an impactful bibliometric analysis and evaluate the structure of a
specific research field that characterizes the most productive journals, authors, countries,
institutions, and the most citations, with a brief description of each part. This process
Sustainability 2021,13, 6488 3 of 25
would help us to understand the development of the neuromarketing domain and the field
of advertising studies by identifying and analyzing the general and particular domain.
Relevant documents were extracted from the WoS by using the following query applied to
the title, abstract, and keywords: (“neuromarketing” OR “consumer neuroscience”).
The overall number of publications was 570 documents from 2004 to 2020. A total
of 63 articles were selected. As shown in Figure 1, we followed PRISMA framework,
which includes four stages: (i) identification as recording identified through database
searching, (ii) screening the record publications, (iii) eligibility means assessment the
eligible publications for this review, and (iv) selecting and including studies, as follows:
Figure 1. PRISMA flow chart. Source: own illustration.
•Articles and reviews published from 2004 to 2020 were included.
•We excluded any documents published in non-English languages.
•
We excluded any irrelevant publications (e.g., book chapters, conferences, and so forth).
We selected studies that applied neuroimaging techniques in advertising campaigns,
the scope of applying these techniques in advertising, as well as the neural correlates of
cognitive (e.g., attention and memory) and emotional processes (e.g., emotion) in advertis-
ing. By reviewing the selected publications for this study, we will improve our insights to
accomplish the objective of this review study.
Sustainability 2021,13, 6488 4 of 25
3. Results
3.1. Bibliometrics Analysis
3.1.1. Leading Countries and Academic Institutions
Table 1shows that the USA, Italy, UK, Germany, and China were the key players in
the advancement of neuromarketing studies, which published approximately more than
50% of the global documents. Nevertheless, the USA led the top productive countries
with 16 papers, which were published in several journals, and the University of Califor-
nia System was published in three papers. The second most productive country in the
neuromarketing topic is Italy with nine papers. The third, fourth, and fifth productive
countries in the list are UK, Germany, and China, with seven papers for each country.
Although China is located in the fifth position in the most productive country, its academic
institution Ningbo University has published the largest number of documents, with four
papers among other academic institutions. The sixth country on the list is the Netherlands
with four papers. Finally, Malaysia, Lithuania, Denmark, and Brazil published the same
amount of publications, with three papers for each country.
Table 1.
The 10 top prolific academic institutions and countries in the neuromarketing topic. Use
the following URL to open the map of productive institutions in VOSviewer: https://bit.ly/3usc68y
(accessed on 1 March 2021).
Country TP % of Selected
Publications The Most Prolific Institution TPI
USA 16 35.6% University of California System 3
Italy 9 20.0% Sapienza University Rome 3
UK 7 15.6% Aston University 2
Germany 7 15.6% Heinrich Heine University Dusseldorf 3
China 7 15.6% Ningbo University 4
Netherland
4 8.9% Erasmus University Rotterdam 2
Malaysia 3 6.7% Monash University Sunway 2
Lithuania 3 6.7% Vytautas Magnus University 3
Denmark 3 6.7% Copenhagen Business School 2
Brazil 3 6.7% Universidade De Sao Paulo Univ Sao Paulo 1
Note: TP; total publications. TPI; total publications by institution.
3.1.2. Leading Authors
We found the top ten prolific authors in publishing about the neuromarketing area
belong to seven countries/territories as tabulated in Table 2. These authors published a
total of 25 papers, which indicates a high collaboration among them. Additionally, the
most productive author is Ma, Qingguo from China, with a total of four papers, 11 citations
by the end of 2020, and two h-index. Next is Lee, Nick from the UK, who published three
papers in neuromarketing with 35 citations and three h-index, which is considered the
highest h-index in the list. Meanwhile, Berns, Gregory s. from the USA published two
papers with two h-index, and has the highest number of the citations with 462 by the end
of 2020. Gier, Nadine Ruth from Germany published two papers and four citations. Finally,
the author from Malaysia, named Goto, Nobuhiko, published two articles, 15 citations by
the end of 2020, and one h-index.
Sustainability 2021,13, 6488 5 of 25
Table 2.
The 10 top productive authors in neuromarketing research. Use the following URL to open the map of productive
authors in VOSviewer: http://bit.ly/3uvMHuI (accessed on 1 March 2021).
Author’s Name TP TC
2004–2020 Cit. 2021 H-Index Affiliation Country
Ma, Qingguo 4 11 1 2 Zhejiang University of Technology China
Lee, Nick 3 35 1 3 Aston University UK
Grigaliunaite,
Viktorija 3 7 0 2 Vytautas Magnus University Lithuania
Pileliene, Lina 3 7 0 2 Vytautas Magnus University Lithuania
Berns, Gregory S. 2 462 5 2 Emory University USA
Babiloni, Fabio 2 80 0 2 Sapienza University Rome Italy
Brandes, Leif 2 29 1 2 University of Warwick UK
Chamberlain, Laura 2 29 1 2 University of Warwick UK
Gier, Nadine Ruth 2 4 0 1
Heinrich Heine University Dusseldorf
Germany
Goto, Nobuhiko 2 15 1 1 Monash University Malaysia
Note: TP; total publications. TC; total citations. Cit; citation.
3.1.3. Leading Journals
The findings indicate that the Frontier in Neuroscience journal is the most produc-
tive journal with 12 documents, as tabulated in Table 3, followed by Frontiers in Human
Neuroscience, which published five documents. The 3rd productive journal is Neuropsy-
chological Trends which has published three documents. Biological Psychology, Cognitive
Neurodynamics, Computational Intelligence and Neuroscience, European Journal of Mar-
keting, and Scientific Annals of Economics and Business have published the same number
of documents, two for each journal.
Table 3.
The most productive journals in neuromarketing research (minimum publication two
documents). Use the following URL to open the map of productive journals in VOSviewer: http:
//bit.ly/3pEvjQE (accessed on 1 March 2021).
Source/Journal TP TC
2004–2020 H-Index
Frontiers in Neuroscience 12 87 5
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 5 13 3
Neuropsychological Trends 3 3 1
Biological Psychology 2 15 1
Cognitive Neurodynamics 2 39 2
Computational Intelligence and Neuroscience 2 60 2
European Journal of Marketing 2 31 2
Scientific Annals of Economics and Business 2 7 2
3.1.4. Keywords Analysis
The keywords co-occurrence has a significant quantitative (numerical) technique in
bibliometrics [
21
] to investigate scientific constructs according to the assumption because
keywords provide a coherent explanation to the articles’ content [
22
], wherein the con-
nection between two keywords is expressed by a numerical value, which indicates a link
strength between these two keywords; a higher numerical value means a stronger link
(link strength) [
23
]. The link strength between two keywords represents the number ap-
pearances of both these keywords in the same article. The total number of links indicates
the aggregate number of appearance together in the same paper. In VOSviewer, we set
one as the minimum occurrences of a keyword, which means keywords will appear on
the bibliometric map at least one time between these two keywords that occur together
in the same paper. In this study, a keywords co-occurrence analysis has been conducted,
which involved 420 keywords from 63 articles in 41 journals with one source as a mini-
mum number of documents. Additionally, the synonymic keywords have been analyzed
Sustainability 2021,13, 6488 6 of 25
before inserting the data into VOSviewer. For example, “neuromarketing”, and “consumer
neuroscience”.
Comerio and Strozzi [
22
] proposed that the keywords co-occurrence analysis is signifi-
cant to provide general claims about the content of articles. Scholars usually use keywords
co-occurrence analysis as an effective method to address the trends of research on a par-
ticular subject by exploring existing academic articles [
18
], including the neuromarketing
field [
24
]. By following Khudzari et al. [
18
], We carry out keywords co-occurrence analysis
to assess the hot themes in neuromarketing. The result of the keywords co-occurrence map
(Figure 2) shows that the neuromarketing research is mainly concentrated on decision-
making (13 occurrences, 165 link strength), which means that decision-making appeared
thirteen times and the link strength for these aggregate appearance is 165 links with neuro-
marketing topic; as we aforementioned, the higher the number value, the stronger the link.
This indicates that most of the research on neuromarketing focused on examining the asso-
ciation between consumer behavior and marketing practices. One possible interpretation
of that is the mismatching between the conscious world, which drives marketing practices
(i.e., advertising), and the unconscious world, which drives decision-making processes in
the human brain [25].
Figure 2.
The bibliometric map of all keywords co-occurrence. Use the following URL to open this map in VOSviewer:
http://bit.ly/3qDdmmQ (accessed on 1 March 2021).
Additionally, it was expected to have a strong connection with other consumer behav-
ior aspects such as “emotion”, which is the second most examined theme(13 occurrences,
159 link strength), followed by “attention” (10 occurrences, 141 link strength). Furthermore,
the fMRI was observed to be a tool highly associated with neuromarketing research (14 oc-
currences, 268 link strength), followed by “EEG” (11 occurrences, 132 link strength), then
“ERP” (6 occurrences, 91 link strength). Table 4presents a summary of the most frequent
keywords, wherein the highest keyword occurrence is neuromarketing.
Sustainability 2021,13, 6488 7 of 25
Table 4. Top keywords by the frequency of their occurrence.
Keyword Occurrences/Frequency Total Link Strength
Neuromarketing 38 409
Consumer neuroscience 18 243
fMRI 14 268
Decision-making 13 165
Emotion 13 159
Attention 10 141
Brain 12 139
EEG 11 132
Neuroscience 10 112
ERP 6 91
Neuroeconomics 6 79
3.1.5. Citations Trend
To answer the RQ1, we identify the most common articles in the neuromarketing
subject by using citation analysis. Citation analysis indicates the number of citations by
other documents to a specific document in order to determine the impact and popularity of
the academic article [
26
]. We analyzed the citation of 63 articles. The findings showed that
the most cited journal among neuromarketing journals is Nature Review Neuroscience with
approximately 347 citations. In addition, the result shows that the most citation articles
that were cited more than 100 times were published by Nature Review Neuroscience and
Elsevier, as tabulated in Table 5. Ariely and Berns [
27
] published the most cited articles,
with 347 citations, while the least cited document in the list was published in 2013 by
Kong et al. [28], with 24 citations.
Table 5. The ten top articles on WOS ordered by citation score among selected publications.
Authors/Year Title Journal TC 2020
Ariely and Berns [27]Science and society neuromarketing: The hope and
hype of neuroimaging in business Nature Reviews Neuroscience 347
Berns and Moore [29] A neural predictor of cultural popularity Journal of Consumer Psychology 120
Vecchiato et al. [30]On the use of EEG or meg brain imaging tools in
neuromarketing research
Computational Intelligence and
Neuroscience 56
Bruce et al. [31]
Branding and a child’s brain: An fMRI study of neural
responses to logos
Social Cognitive and Affective
Neuroscience 41
Schneider and Woolgar [32]Technologies of ironic revelation: enacting consumers
in neuromarkets Consumption Markets & Culture 32
Lin et al. [33]
Fusion of electroencephalographic dynamics and
musical contents for estimating emotional responses in
music listening
Frontiers in Neuroscience 32
Morris et al. [34]Mapping a Multidimensional Emotion in Response to
Television Commercials Human Brain Mapping 27
Chen et al. [35]
From “Where” to “What”: Distributed Representations
of Brand Associations in the Human Brain Journal of Marketing Research 26
Treleaven-Hassard et al. [36]Using the P3a to gauge automatic attention to
interactive television advertising Journal of Economic Psychology 25
Kong et al. [28]Electronic evaluation for video commercials by
impression index Cognitive Neurodynamics 24
Co-Citations Analysis
Co-citation also helps to identify the thematic gaps and structure of literature in a
specific topic through co-citation analysis [
20
]. Additionally, it helps scholars to identify
the topic area and the content of that topic through assessing the most frequently cited
references together. Similarity in theory, method, and subject can be indicators of the
Sustainability 2021,13, 6488 8 of 25
appearance of two publications more than once in the reference list. Therefore, we have
used the VOSviewer software to measure the correlation between a couple of references by
using the link strength between them, wherein the number of the total refers to the link
strength between these references [
37
]. Table 6shows the numbers of link strength between
the couple of authors, wherein higher numbers means higher correlations between them.
We found that 21 pairs of articles co-cited with each other at least ten times. Additionally,
we also found that the number of link strength between Lee et al. [
38
] and Lee et al. [
39
]
is 34 links, as the strongest co-citation correlation between a couple of authors. The
link strength between Lee et al. [
39
] and Ramsøy et al. [
40
] was the second strongest co-
citation between a couple of authors, with 13 links, followed by Ariely and Berns [
27
] and
Berns and Moore [
29
]. These findings confirm our discussion in the body of literature
in neuromarketing, wherein neuromarketing concentrates on the consumer’s behaviors,
benefits of neuromarketing in advertising research, and the neural correlates in the brain
toward advertisements.
Table 6. The ten top document pairs with more than 3 link strength.
Title Author 1 Author 2
Link Strength
between
Authors 1,2
This is your brain on neuromarketing: reflections on a
decade of research Lee et al. [38] Lee et al. [39] 34
Welcome to the jungle! The neuromarketing literature
through the eyes of a newcomer Lee et al. [39] Ramsøy et al. [40] 13
Neuromarketing: the hope and hype of neuroimaging
in business Ariely and Berns [27] Berns and Moore [29] 13
From “Where” to “What”: Distributed
Representations of Brand Associations in the Human
Brain
Chen et al. [35] Hsu and Yoon [41] 13
Trust me if you can–neurophysiological insights on
the influence of consumer impulsiveness on
trustworthiness evaluations in online settings
Hubert et al. [42] Lee et al. [39] 7
Electronic evaluation for video commercials by
impression index Kong et al. [28] Vecchiato et al. [30] 6
Neural signals of selective attention are modulated by
subjective preferences and buying decisions in a
virtual shopping task
Goto et al. [43] Lee et al. [39] 5
A neural predictor of cultural popularity Berns and Moore [29] Chen et al. [35] 5
The neuroscience of consumer choice Hsu and Yoon [41] Ramsøy et al. [40] 5
Ethical responsibility of neuromarketing companies in
harnessing the market research–A global exploratory
approach
Pop et al. [44]Schneider and Woolgar
[32]5
Branding and a child’s brain: an fMRI study of neural
responses to logos Bruce et al. [31] Chen et al. [35] 4
Social Consumer Neuroscience: Neurophysiological
Measures of Advertising Effectiveness in a Social
Context
Pozharliev et al. [45] Wei et al. [46] 3
Co-Citation Network and Data Clustering
VOSviewer software has been used for analysis of the co-citation network that helps
scholars to address the intellectual development in a specific area. It has identified some
clusters to carry out the content analysis; thereby studying, exploring, and understanding
the structure and nature of neuromarketing tools in the advertising field. We found
Sustainability 2021,13, 6488 9 of 25
49 articles that co-cited at least one time with another. Among these articles, we noticed
that at least ten times of co-citation have occurred just in 21 articles. We followed the
instructions recommended by Baker et al. [
47
]; Ali et al. [
48
]; Alsharif et al. [
24
] to visualize
the co-citation network map of the top ten articles by using VOSviewer software. Similarly,
we used the weighted citation count that is provided by VOSviewer software to get the
high-quality articles in each cluster.
As shown in Figure 3, the analysis results of the relevant documents illustrated three
clusters with a high correlation between them. Among these three clusters, the green
one is the largest cluster, which is dominated by Ariely and Berns [
27
] with 605 total
citations, followed by the red one, which is led by Vecchiato et al. [
30
] with almost 198 total
citations. Finally, the blue group is led by Schneider and Woolgar [
32
] with approximately
107 total citations. For the green group, the citations number of Ariely and Berns [
27
],
Berns and Moore [
29
], Bruce et al. [
31
], Chen et al. [
35
], Treleaven-Hassard et al. [
36
], Hsu
and Yoon [
41
], Santos et al. [
49
], and Hubert et al. [
42
] are 347, 120, 41, 26, 25, 16, 16, and
14, respectively. For the red group, the citations of Vecchiato et al. [
30
], Lin et al. [
33
],
Morris et al. [
34
], Kong et al. [
28
], Goto et al. [
43
], Chew et al. [
50
], and Pozharliev et al. [
45
]
are 56, 32, 27, 24, 16, 16, and 15, respectively. For the blue group, the citations of Schneider
and Woolgar [
32
], Pop et al. [
44
], Ramsoy et al. [
40
], Lee et al. [
39
], and Lee et al. [
38
] are 32,
23, 22, 19, and 11, consecutively. Although these clusters/groups address various aspects
of neuromarketing, they are highly interconnected and complementary.
Figure 3.
Map of documents citations 21 articles (minimum of 10 citations). Use the following URL to open this map in
VOSviewer URL: http://bit.ly/3aByx3o (accessed on 1 March 2021).
3.2. An Overview of Neuroimaging Tools Used in Advertising Research
Advertising is the branch that most benefits from neuromarketing tools. Neuromarket-
ing tools (e.g., psychological and neuroimaging tools) have been used to know the influence
of advertising on the neural mechanisms of consumers and decision-making
[51–53]
. For
example, these tools enable to identify neural correlates of emotional and cognitive pro-
cesses in advertising, to identify the negative or the positive elements in advertising that
cause aversion or approach behavior, to determine visual and sound features, to select
Sustainability 2021,13, 6488 10 of 25
the suitable media for advertising [
54
], to obtain unspoken new information [
24
], and
thereby creating more effective commercial advertisings [
55
], social initiative ads [
56
],
and antismoking campaigns [
57
,
58
]. These tools record and measure the emotional and
cognitive processes toward advertising and the effect of stimuli to be implemented at the
purchase point to promote sales [59].
Advances in non-invasive neuroimaging tools in the last decade facilitated to record
consumers’ neuro-signals with wearable, portable, reliable, and comfortable tools. That
has grabbed immense attention from both academia and industrial field, and collaboration
between marketers, neuroscientists, and psychologists in order to better understand what
drives consumer behavior and neural processing of advertising in the human brain [
60
]. For
example, it has divided neuroimaging tools that provide evidence on neural correlates of
advertising and consumers’ behavior into two categories, as follows: (1) recording electrical
activity signals such as electroencephalography (EEG) and magnetoencephalography
(MEG), and (2) recording metabolic activity signals such as functional magnetic resonance
imaging (fMRI) and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) [13,61–65].
By neuroimaging tools, it has become possible to record and analyze the neural signals
activity in the brain; thereby, these tools have become significant for early evaluation of
marketing practices such as advertising [
66
,
67
]. The neuroimaging tools such as fMRI,
fNIRS, EEG, and MEG are common used in advertising research, and undoubtedly, each
tool has pros and cons (e.g., cost, analysis data time, sample size, and spatial and temporal
accuracy) [14].
3.2.1. Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging
FMRI is also a non-invasive tool that used huge magnetics to detect the metabolic
changes in the brain by recording the level of oxygen in the blood vessels, wherein the active
regions in the brain produce stronger signals than inactive regions [
68
,
69
]. Additionally,
it has excellent spatial accuracy (estimated 1–10 mm
3
in deep structure of the brain) and
acceptable temporal resolution (estimated 1–3 s) [
70
]. Alongside that, it uses 3D technology
to record and analyze the brain’s signals and display them on the monitor [
35
], which
is helping the researchers and scientists to measure brains’ reaction, such as emotional
and cognitive processes, toward advertising [
60
,
71
–
76
], wherein fMRI is used to know the
influence of advertising on buying decisions [
76
,
77
]. Articles have been analyzed one-by-
one, and the authors found that the fMRI tool was used in ten articles (approximately 17%
of total articles).
3.2.2. Electroencephalography and Magnetoencephalography
EEG is used the first time to measure consumers’ response toward television adver-
tisements in the early of 1970s [
11
]. EEG is a non-invasive tool using electrodes on the
scalp to record the frequency of the active neurons in the brain directly [78]. Additionally,
EEG can record the activation regions in the brain in milliseconds due to the high temporal
resolution, but on the opposite, has a poor spatial resolution that enables to record the
cortical brain activity (approximately 1 cm3 brain structure) [
70
,
74
,
79
–
81
]. According to
literature, EEG has five frequency bands such as delta (0–4 Hz), theta (4–7 Hz), alpha
(
8–15 Hz
), beta (16–31 Hz), and gamma (larger than 32 Hz) [
46
]. EEG is not as expensive
and noisy as the fMRI technique, but is limited to recording the cortical activity of the brain;
thereby, it is not a good technique for recording the regions underneath the cortical [
68
].
EEG is used to measure the cognitive processes (e.g., attention, memory) and emotional
valence [
67
,
82
–
84
]. MEG is similar to EEG, but MEG uses a magnetic field to measure the
activity regions in the brain, and it has a greater spatial resolution than EEG and high
temporal resolution [
79
]. Both of them are somewhat limited to record the cortical activity
of the brain; thereby, they are not good technologies for recording the regions underneath
the cortical [
68
]. We analyzed articles one-by-one, and the authors found that the EEG tool
has been used in fifteen articles (almost 24% of total articles), which is deemed as the most
Sustainability 2021,13, 6488 11 of 25
used tool in advertising research within a neuromarketing context, and the MEG tool was
employed twice in two articles (approximately 4% of total articles).
3.2.3. Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy
fNIRS is analogous to fMRI, is a non-invasive tool that is used to record modifications
in hemoglobin flow (e.g., oxyhemoglobin and deoxyhemoglobin) during brain activity
and establish a map of the blood oxygenation in the local brain area [
85
], wherein the
active regions in the brain required more oxyhemoglobin [
86
]. However, fNIRS has poor
spatial resolution that is limited to recording the cortical regions and cannot be employed
to measure the deeper structures of the brain, and the temporal resolution is relatively
acceptable (estimated in few seconds) [
12
]. However, there are several advantages of
the fNIRS tool such as being portable, inexpensive, and not noisy. Each tool used in
neuromarketing research has pros and cons, making them more or less suitable for various
research circumstances. Based on the results, it has been found that the fNIRS was used in
two articles (approximately 4% of total articles) due to it being a new tool.
These tools depend on temporal and spatial accuracy in recording the activity regions
to answer questions related to the marketing issues [
87
]. Although, all these tools have
been applied in advertising campaigns to evaluate the neural correlates of constructs such
as emotion, memory, and attention [
88
] to evaluate the neural processing in advertising [
89
].
Table 7illustrated the main neuroimaging tools that have applied in advertising campaigns,
advantages and disadvantages, measure brain activity (e.g., cognitive and emotional
processes), and when they are used.
The answer of the RQ2, we have analyzed the selected articles one-by-one, and it
was found that the EEG tool has been used in fifteen articles (almost 24% of total articles),
which is deemed as the most used tool in advertising research within a neuromarketing
context, followed by the fMRI tool, which was used in ten articles (approximately 17%
of total articles), then the MEG tool was employed twice in two articles (approximately
4% of total articles). Finally, although the fNIRS is not so expensive a tool compared to
others and considered as a new neuroimaging tool, therefore, it was used in two articles
(approximately 4% of total articles). Therefore, the EEG tool is considered as the most
neuroimaging tool that used in advertising research.
Sustainability 2021,13, 6488 12 of 25
Table 7. Application of neuroimaging techniques in advertising campaigns.
Tool Brain Activity (Cognitive and
Emotional Processes) When Is It Used? Advantages Disadvantages Cost
fMRI
Memory, sensory perception,
emotional valence (e.g., positive
or negative), emotional arousal
(e.g., high or low), attention,
reward, engagement.
Testing advertisements, brand,
packaging design, prices,
reposition a brand, sensory
celebrity endorsement, online
experience, product quality,
promotion, product characteristics,
predicting consumer’s choices and
identify their needs.
High spatial accuracy (estimated by
1–10 mm3of deep structures), reliable
and valid for measuring cognitive
processes (e.g., attention, emotion, and
memory), localizing neural processing
during consumer choices and
consumption experience, ability to
detect changes in chemical
composition or changes in the flow
fluids in the brain.
Low temporal accuracy
(estimated by 1–10 s), expensive,
non-scalable, inconvenient, the
complexity in data analysis, and
ethical barriers as an invasion of
privacy, need wide rooms.
High
EEG
Emotions (e.g., valence and
arousal), attention, memory,
cognition and recognition,
engagement or boredom,
excitement, and mental
workload.
Testing advertisements, logo,
developing advertisements,
in-store environment, app and
social media, website design and
usability, movie trailers, packaging
design, pricing, sensory studies,
prints and images design, and
identifying the key moments of an
advertisements or video.
High temporal accuracy (estimated by
milliseconds), relatively inexpensive,
non-invasive tool, data analysis
straightforward, valid for measuring
cognitive information processing,
statistical software packages available,
allows comparisons between left and
right hemispheres.
Low spatial accuracy (almost 1
cm3), non-scalable, results can
be influenced by artifacts and
experimental settings, difficult
to retrieve the exact location for
each recorded signal, it is not
possible to record the emotional
arousal.
Moderate- High
MEG Attention, memory, perception.
Testing advertisements, brand, new
product, packaging design, sensory
studies, and identify needs.
Good temporal accuracy, non-invasive,
able to detect changes in chemical
components.
Low spatial accuracy, expensive,
and ethical barriers, need for a
room with low temperatures.
High
FNIRS
Attention, emotion (e.g., valence
and arousal), sensory
perception.
Testing advertisements, brand,
prices, product (e.g., quality,
characteristics, and experience).
Low sensitivity to motion artifacts,
portable, low cost, use in real-world
situations, comfortable.
Low spatial accuracy and
temporal accuracy. Moderate
Source: [12,60].
Sustainability 2021,13, 6488 13 of 25
3.3. Main Brain Processes and Regions of Interest for Advertising
Every year, millions and maybe billions of US dollars are spent on advertising campaigns
to reach a large number of target audiences and maintain the consumers’ purchase processes.
Selecting media channels should be compatible with the purpose of advertising, features
of product and target market characteristics. Thus, every day consumers are exposed to
hundreds of ads by media such as TV, radio, and so forth [
90
]. Kotler and Keller [
91
] defined
advertising as a paid communication to inform or persuade target audiences about a certain
organization, product, brand, service, or even idea. Globally, when the coronavirus put a halt
on many industries, the spending on advertising worldwide has been increasing steadily. It
is expected to go back on a steady growth track starting in 2021, and exceed 630 billion US
dollars in 2024, wherein TV advertising spending in 2019 amounted to more than 176 billion
U.S. dollars. Although it is expected to decrease to nearly 158 billion dollars by 2022, it will
remain the largest spending sector among media sectors [92].
In today’s hyper-competitive environment, advertising has become more complicated
and challenging, therefore, marketing research should adapt to this new situation to achieve
advertising excellence [
12
]. At the end of the 20th century, businesses began employing
concepts and neuroscience tools such as the fMRI to study the consumer behavior (e.g.,
decision-making) toward marketing stimuli. The findings showed that the majority of mental
processing occurs unconsciously or subconsciously, which highly contributes to decision-
making [
93
]. The majority of studies examine the impact of advertising on attention, emotions,
memory, and making decisions processes. For instance, neuromarketing studies focus on how
consumers evaluate, process, and experience advertisements [
36
,
94
,
95
]. Hence, neuroimaging
tools has been introduced to explore, understand, analyze, and explain the consumer behavior
(e.g., decision-making), emotional processes (e.g., emotions and feelings), and cognitive
processes (e.g., attention and memory) toward advertising campaigns [94–99].
Indeed, advertising is the branch that most benefits from neuromarketing [
100
] be-
cause neuromarketing is capable to record and measure the impact of advertising on the
neural mechanisms of consumers and decision-making in the human brain [
53
,
101
]. Thus,
neuromarketing has improved our understanding of cognitive, neuronal, and emotional
processes in the brain related to advertising campaigns [
59
]. Advertising illustrated a rising
interest in measuring cognitive and emotional processes. Figure 4illustrated the proposed
framework of brain processes and regions of interest for advertising.
Figure 4.
The proposed framework of main brain processes of interest for advertising. Source: own
illustration.
Sustainability 2021,13, 6488 14 of 25
3.3.1. Decision-Making Processes
For decades, marketing research oriented all efforts to understand how the consumer
decision-making and the mechanisms of making decisions. Therefore, many models
and theories aimed to understanding the decision-making process through qualitative or
quantitative research methods [
11
]. The market research has been focused on qualitative
methods because researchers believe maybe these methods can help to reveal consumers’
decision-making process [
55
]. According to [
102
], the consumers do not fully realize what
led them in taking a particular decision, and it has been discovered that the making decision
process is more complicated than we had realized. This led us to infer that the decision-
making process is not only relying on rational factors, but also unconscious processes such
emotion, attention, and memory [
103
]. Therefore, there are essential factors that are playing
a vital role in decision-making processes such as emotions, attention, and memory. That is
the reason for orienting towards consumer neuroscience studies [104,105].
To answer the second part of the RQ3, it has been found that several areas of the
PFC are the most important regions in the consumer brain when we talk about decision-
making processes, wherein the regions behind the frontal praise, the premotor cortex and
the motor cortex, translate the decisions into concrete actions [
106
]. For example, some
studies showed that the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex
(vmPFC) are engaged in making decisions through the perceived value of ads or products,
processing different choices [
107
,
108
]. The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) plays a
vital role in decision-making processes; in terms its responsibility for cognitive control
over emotions [
109
]. In addition, the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC) plays a vital
role in motivating social norm compliance by display expose to threats from others [
110
].
Therefore, these regions in the brain can provide valuable insights about decision-making
processes and consumer choices.
3.3.2. Emotional Processes
At the beginning of the 21st century, the role of emotions increasingly grabbed atten-
tion from both academia and industrial environments because emotions drive consumer
choices [
111
]. Emotion is one of the aspects that most gets the attention of many researchers.
Indeed, emotions are accompanied by involuntary somatic reactions such as facial expres-
sions (e.g., smiling and frowning) and physiological reactions (e.g., sweating), which are
caused by changes in the autonomic nervous system (ANS) [
112
]. The role of emotions in
decision-making has been further explained through neurological and cognitive frame-
works such as the somatic marker theory [
113
]. The majority of researchers agreed on
two dimensions of measuring emotion: (a) valence, and (b) arousal [
53
]. Valence refers to
either positive emotions (e.g., pleasure) or negative emotions (e.g., displeasure) that are
produced by a stimulus or the situation that elicits individuals [
114
–
116
], while arousal
refers to the intensity of emotional responses, which are commonly used to classify the
different forms of emotional affect either high arousal (e.g., surprised) or low arousal
(e.g., calmness) (Figure 5) [
114
,
117
,
118
]. It may be high when the stimulus produces a
high activation in the participation (e.g., surprised) or maybe low when produces low
activation (e.g., calmness). Several models have affirmed on both valence and arousal as
two dimensions of emotion [
119
–
121
]. With these two dimensions, valence measures from
positive to negative while emotional arousal measures from high to low [
117
,
121
,
122
]. In
the same context, it is too difficult to separate between them because stimuli used to induce
emotional valence, as well as to determine a change in emotional arousal [
123
]. Therefore,
it is not only important to examine the role of positive and negative stimuli in attention and
the associated processes, but also to dissociate between different levels of arousal within
the emotional categories, which can be achieved [124].
Sustainability 2021,13, 6488 15 of 25
Figure 5. Valence and arousal model of emotions [118].
Contemporarily, researchers attempted to investigate brain activity signals correlated
with an increase of emotional processes during the interaction with marketing stimuli such
as advertisements [
88
,
125
]. To answer the second part of the RQ3, the literature findings
showed that the frontal cortex (FC) and prefrontal cortex (PFC) regions play a central role
in generation of emotions [
126
,
127
]. The left PFC is linked with approach behavior, while
the right PFC connected with withdrawal/avoidance behavior [
128
]. Additionally, the
amygdala is correlated with regulation of emotional responses, which involves the emotion
processing toward marketing stimuli such as ads [
110
]. For example, fMRI studies showed
that the positive valence (pleasure) related to a stronger activity in the orbitofrontal cortex
(OFC), while negative valence (displeasure) associated with a stronger activity in the lateral
OFC and left dorsal anterior insula [
129
]. O’Doherty et al. [
130
] found that a negative
valence is connected to a stronger activity in the lateral OFC. Morris et al. [
34
] carried out
the experiment to record the neural reactions of the three keys of emotion (e.g., arousal,
dominance, and pleasure) toward TV ads by using fMRI tool. They found that the arousing
and pleasant advertising are connected to the frontal and temporal brain regions. Similarly,
the fMRI has been used by Chen and Morris [
73
] to record emotional responses toward
TV ads. The findings revealed that the arousal and pleasure play a vital role in emotions
toward advertisements, which led to decision-making.
3.3.3. Cognitive Processes
Attention and emotion are highly connected to each other [
131
,
132
]. The PFC also
plays a vital role in attention, which is linked with the neurons of processing visual
stimuli in the occipital lobe (primary visual cortex) in the brain [
133
]. Consumers receive
approximately 11 million bits of information every second through their senses (e.g., vision,
olfactory, and so forth), but the ability of consumers to process information has been
estimated at 50 bits [
134
]. That leads us to attention and how consumers perceive and
process information, and thus select information that gets prioritized over other available
Sustainability 2021,13, 6488 16 of 25
information [
122
]. According to Meneguzzo et al. [
135
], perception of unconsciously
perceived stimuli has activated the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and insula cortex in
order to shape the basis of conscious perception. According to the literature, there are two
types of attention system: (a) bottom-up (saliency filters), and (b) top-down system [
13
,
136
].
Furthermore, the anterior cingulate cortex is playing a vital role in a dynamic relationship
between top-down modulation and bottom-up primary sensory [
135
,
137
]. For example,
Smith and Gevins [
138
] found that occipital lobe (OL) is connected to attention processes to
TV ads. A recent fMRI study found that the compatibility between advertising and gender
voice (male, female) induce endogenous attention regions [139].
•
Bottom-up system (visual saliency/involuntary control); this system is driven by
automatic neural processes toward the external world. In other words, in this system,
the process begins from the external stimuli (e.g., color, contrast, brightness, etc.) that
automatically grab consumers’ attention, therefore, the signal comes from external
stimuli to the eyes to the thalamus regions and then to the primary visual region in
the occipital lobe (OL), as depicted in Figure 6[13,136,140–142].
Figure 6. The model of bottom-up attention system. Source: own illustration.
•
Top-down system (goal-driven attention/voluntary control); this system is oriented
by consumers toward goals and relies on internal and external states, goals, and
expectation (goal-driven attention). In this system, the dlPFC and parietal cortex are
engaging and modulating the activation of the primary visual cortex in the occipital
lobe, as shown in Figure 7[
13
,
136
,
140
–
142
]. In other words, this is where you need
to focus your mental energy, need to think hard about what you want to look at.
Therefore, the signal begins from the internal world of the consumer.
Figure 7. The model of top-down attention system. Source: own illustration.
Memory studies provide valuable insights into the neural correlates of advertising
in the brain. Memory is the most complicated variable among others, and marketers and
advertisers are highly interested in encoding and retrieving memories besides long-term
memory (LTM) and short-term memory (STM) processes [
132
,
140
]. To answer the second
part of the RQ3, it has been noticed that the hippocampus (HC) plays a major role in
generating memories and processing of memory. Additionally, the amygdala (AMY) is
located next to and closely related to the HC, which is a significant modulator of the
memory system [
143
]. Therefore, emotions also play a vital role in memory processes,
which help us to store and remember memories [
132
,
144
]. Rossiter et al. [
145
] conducted the
first study to measure visual memory encoding toward TV ads by using EEG. They found
that the left-brain hemisphere is responsible for transferring the information from short-
to-long term memory. Fallani et al. [
146
], Astolfi et al. [
147
] used EEG to assess the brain
regions triggered by successful memory-encoding of TV ads. The findings showed more
activity in the cortical area irrespective the frequency of the EEG. The EEG investigations
Sustainability 2021,13, 6488 17 of 25
into the effect of message advertising on the recognition memory. The results showed
activity in the gamma band, which directly effects memory, and also the significance of the
EEG tool in study the advertising message processing [
148
]. Previous fMRI study found
that greater activity in the amygdala and fronto-temporal are linked with memory ads
(memorable and unmemorable) [149,150].
3.4. Ethics
Actually, the significant concern for the term “Neuromarketing” has only quickly
increased throughout the last decade, which led to discussing series of ethical issues not
only in society, but also in scientific committees, media, and press [
151
]. For example,
when the publicity and media have reported about the potential dangers of NM regarding
finding a “buy button” in the individuals’ mind by advertisers and marketers [
152
], to
analyze their private thoughts and emotions to impact on their purchasing decisions,
besides manipulation of the consumers’ minds [
153
]. NM is used to create better products
or ads to entice consumers, but not manipulate the consumers’ minds [
152
]. For example,
companies can know their consumers’ preferences and behaviors by NM and, thus, can
provide more beneficial and profitable services and products. According to Ariely and
Berns [
27
], NM’s application by companies concentrating on profit rather than consumers’
wellbeing through harmful ads for products (e.g., tobacco, alcohol ..., etc.). This may be
true to some extent, and the reason to indicate NM for violating ethical boundaries and
breaking the consumers’ trust.
In addition, many scientists and researchers have pointed out that NM might threaten
individuals’ privacy if this technology can deal with consumer behavior effectively and
accurately [
154
]. However, others have argued that these worries are probably premature
because state-of-the-art imaging technology does not allow for precise predictions of con-
sumers’ decisions [
155
]. Thus, NM danger concerns have led several governments (e.g.,
France) to take some concrete procedures against rogue use of NM tools [
156
]. Therefore,
the ethical issues are considered the most sensitive factors that should be considered when
neuro-scientists, neuro-marketers, and companies conduct their academic and commercial
NM research [
51
]. Thus, companies have to abide by rules and ethics issues [
157
]. Plus,
companies should abide by the laws and the government’s declarations regarding con-
sumers, children, and patients [
151
]. For instance, any studies related to human research
should follow the government’s laws, and it must conduct a rigorous investigation after
any human researches by government and company ethics committees [158].
From an academic perspective, according to Plassmann et al. [
159
], there are three
major challenges, as follows: Firstly, consumer neuroscience research often faces the
criticisms that they provide correlational evidence, but not causal evidence; thereby, they
provide valuable information about understanding the consumers’ brain, not consumers’
behavior. Accordingly, marketing researchers are encouraged to see neuromarketing as
an additional tool to improve/develop behavioral measures and interpretation. Secondly,
because of the small sample size, the experiments of neuroscience lack generalizability and
reliability of the findings; for example, if we look at publications in prestigious journals
(e.g., Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience and Journal of Marketing Research), the sample
size of experiments is almost 20–30 volunteers in each circumstance, to present converging
evidence toward the specific case. The last challenge is interpreting findings; it is assumed
that the brain region is united based on the previous study. In other words, it has been
noticed that when a certain cognitive process happens, a particular region in the brain is
active, but there might be another cognitive process that is not examined directly, but is
associated with that cognitive process (i.e., a reverse inference) [11].
In this regard, firstly, companies and organization have to focus on the orientation of
the NM toward the right way by increasing the wellbeing of society and produce profitable
products to satisfy the actual consumers’ needs and desires; meanwhile, it should not
fall into promoting harmful products such as, but not limited to, tobacco, which the
press and media can exploit to fuel speculations and trigger aggressive attacks on NM.
Sustainability 2021,13, 6488 18 of 25
Secondly, companies and organizations should not look at these arbitrary assumptions
and continue to strive for success and stay productive. Eventually, it is hoped that all
companies follow the government rules and instructions to secure the consumers’ safety
and privacy foremost.
4. Discussion
In recent years, the majority of research focused on studying the neural correlates of
consumer behavior (i.e., decision-making), emotional and cognitive processes that have
applied in advertising campaigns to explain the conscious and unconscious processes
that occur in the human brain and pinpoint the active regions of these processes in the
mind. We have followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-
Analyses (PRISMA) framework based on Moher et al. [
19
] to select relevant documents
for this review study as the neuroimaging techniques applied in advertising. The findings
suggest that the number of papers has been rapidly growing since 2004. Interestingly,
approximately 50% of the total publications were contributed by the USA, Italy, England,
Germany, and China, while other remained studies were placed in several continents such
as Europe, Latin America, Asia, African regions, and Australia (e.g., see Table 1). Although
the USA is the most productive country with 16 papers, China was the most productive
country in terms of the number of publications per author, for example, Ma, Qingguo,
with four papers. However, the most productive journal is Frontiers in Neuroscience, with
12 documents and 87 total citations. Therefore, we encourage scholars and researchers to
further inspect the neuromarketing subject and its techniques from emerging countries.
In the last decade, neuroimaging techniques have developed, and therefore, grabbed
attention of both academics and industries. The authors adopted the bibliometrics analysis
because it would help to answer the RQ1. The findings showed that the most cited journal
among neuromarketing journals is Nature Review Neuroscience with approximately 347 ci-
tations. It is significant to provide a clear overview of preferred and popular neuroimaging
techniques employed in advertising studies. We found a wide set of techniques used
in advertising research, but at the same time, we observed that there are some common
neuroimaging techniques among researchers. Thus, we found four common neuroimag-
ing techniques that were preferred and used in advertising research such as fMRI, EEG,
MEG, and FNIRS [
13
,
160
,
161
]. The comprehensive review of selected articles in order to
answer the RQ2, it was found that the EEG is the technique employed most in advertising
research to record/measure the consumer behavior (i.e., decision-making), cognitive (i.e.,
attention and memory) and emotional (i.e., emotion) processes compared to fMRI due
to less cost and high temporal resolution [
1
,
6
,
60
]. Whereas the EEG was used in fifteen
articles, which account for approximately 24% of total articles, the fMRI has been used in
ten articles, which account for almost 17% of selected articles, while the MEG and fNIRS
were employed in two articles, with approximately 4% of total articles for each technique.
In addition, papers emphasized the advantages of the fMRI in recording the distal
brain structures compared with other techniques in responsible regions on decision-making
processes [
14
,
162
,
163
]. The choice of appropriate technique by researchers or marketers is
dependent on research questions and marketing purposes. No less important and linked to
RQ3, in this review, it has been found that the advertising research is interested to measure
the consumer behavior (i.e., decision-making), cognitive (e.g., attention and memory) and
emotional [
164
] processes. Additionally, the findings showed that the PFC, located in
the frontal lobe (FL), is the most significant region when it comes to decision-making
processes. For example, the OFC, the vmPFC [
108
], and the dlPFC play a central role in
decision-making processes [
109
]. In addition, we found the left PFC and right PFC linked to
approach and avoidance behavior, respectively. While the OFC engaged in positive valence
(pleasure), lateral OFC and left dorsal anterior insula were associated with negative valence
of emotion (displeasure) [
129
]. Finally, the FL and temporal lobe (TL) are engaged to dimen-
sions of emotion (valence and arousal) [
34
]. For attention, we found thalamus and primary
visual regions in the OL engaged in bottom-up attention system as well as dlPFC, parietal
Sustainability 2021,13, 6488 19 of 25
cortex, and primary visual regions engaged in top-down attention system
[13,136,140,141]
.
The hippocampus was linked with generating and processing memories, and the amygdala
related to the modulator of the memory system [
143
]. In addition, it has found that the
activation of the right hemisphere is associated with subliminal stimulation, while the
left hemisphere is related to supraliminal stimulation, which led us to infer that the right
hemisphere is related to emotional processing and left hemisphere associated with higher
level emotional processing [135,165].
5. Conclusions
Implication of the research findings for theory and practice: Theoretically, the current
findings can be divided into three folds, as follows: Firstly, neuroimaging techniques
such as fMRI, EEG, MEG, and fNIRS in assessing the neural correlate of decision-making,
cognitive, and emotional processes can be beneficial in marketing research (e.g., advertising,
branding). Secondly, it will help the marketers and scholar to identify the positive and
negative elements in advertisements before putting it in the real-world, thereby, enhance the
strengths and address the weakness, which lead to more effective advertising campaigns.
Third, the majority of the studies focused on detecting the neural correlates of emotional
and cognitive processes in the brain toward advertising (e.g., message effectiveness),
thereby, the ability of these processes to predict consumer behavior after advertising
campaigns. In addition, there are some studies focused on gender voice and political
messages in advertising campaigns. Therefore, these three folds together can explain
the neural correlates of cognitive and emotional processes of interest for advertising. An
application of this research may offer measurable explanations of how advertising works
in consumers’ mind, therefore creating the irresistible advertising campaigns.
Limitations and Future research: Although we tried to minimize the shortcomings in
methodology, this study comes with a limitation that offers opportunities for future research.
We focus on the publications that were published in the English language and overlooked
the non-English language publications, therefore our study is not completely bias-free. For
future trends, we suggest that scholars should investigate the impact of neuromarketing
research on moral and ethical issues alongside the contributions of neuromarketing research
in other disciplines such as economics and crisis management. It is significant for scholars
to employ and design an experiment well to get high accuracy results.
General Conclusion: For decades, marketers and advertisers tried to understand what
is in the consumer brain and how they make decisions. Neuroscientific research has
shown that the majority of mental processing occurs unconsciously or subconsciously,
which highly contribute to decision making. In today’s hyper-competitive environment,
advertising has become more complicated and challenging, so marketing research should
adapt to this new situation to achieve advertising excellence. Hence, neuromarketing
has been introduced to explore, understand, analyze, and explain the consumer behavior
(e.g., decision-making), emotional processes (e.g., emotions and feelings), and cognitive
processes (e.g., attention and memory) toward advertising campaigns. Most studies
in advertising demonstrate the vital role of the cognitive and emotional processes in
decision-making, wherein the PFC and FL are the most important regions when it comes
to making decisions.
The findings suggested that neuroimaging techniques are highly important to measure
and record decision-making, cognitive, and emotional processes in the consumer mind
toward advertisements. For example, fMRI and EEG are deemed as the most preferred
techniques that are used in advertising research. We believe that our study provides a
comprehensive overview of the current and the main common neuroimaging techniques
that are applied in advertising research, as well as the main brain processes and regions
of interest for advertising campaigns. We hope that this study will help scholars and
practitioners to identify the appropriate technique for their experiments to increase their
accuracy and reliability results.
Sustainability 2021,13, 6488 20 of 25
Author Contributions:
A.H.A., conceptualization, methodology, writing—original draft prepara-
tion, and result discussion; N.Z.M.S. and R.B., supervision, review and editing; A.R.H.E., funding
acquisition and methodology; A.A.M., review, editing and result discussion; J.A., A.F.A. and A.H.A.,
data curation. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Funding: This research received no external funding.
Institutional Review Board Statement: Not applicant.
Informed Consent Statement: Not applicant.
Data Availability Statement: Not applicant.
Acknowledgments:
The authors would like to thank Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), Azman
Hashim International Business School (AHIBS) and Taif University, Ranyah University College,
Department of Financial and Administrative Sciences for supporting this study.
Conflicts of Interest:
The authors of this manuscript declare that they have no conflict of interest
concerning its drafting, publication, or application.
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