Last week I announced via a post on my firms blog OTOinsights that I intended to partially update the definition of Neuromarketing in Wikipedia. Just a couple of minutes ago, I finally made my edits to Wikipedia and I have decided to post something in this forum to detail the change and allow the MITX community comment.

The old definition, which I found dated and too narrowly focused on cognitive based research methods, was:

"Neuromarketing is a new field of marketing which uses medical technologies such as functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), and Electroencephalography (EEG) to study the brain's responses to marketing stimuli. Researchers use the fMRI to measure changes in activity in parts of the brain, or EEG to measure activity in specific regional spectra of the brain response, to learn why consumers make the decisions they do, and what part of the brain is telling them to do it."

The new definition, that I published today I believe represents a broader array of research methods deployed in Neuromarketing today. It reads:

"Neuromarketing is a new field of marketing that studies consumers sensorimotor, cognitive, and affective response to marketing stimuli. Researchers use technologies such as functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to measure changes in activity in parts of the brain, Electroencephalography (EEG) to measure activity in specific regional spectra of the brain response, and/or sensors to measure changes in ones physiological state (Heart Rate, Respiratory Rate, Galvanic Skin Response) to learn why consumers make the decisions they do, and what part of the brain is telling them to do it."

There is no doubt that this will continue to evolve as the industry does. In fact One to One Interactive's OTOinsights division is currently working with other leading Neuromarketing research firms in the United States to establish the country's first Neuromarketing Association. I imagine that such effort will yield an even broader and robust definition of this emerging industry.

Jeremi Karnell-President, One to One Interactive