Neuromarketing firms in meeting of minds

UK-- California-based neuromarketing agency NeuroFocus has acquired London's Neuroco for an undisclosed sum.

The agency has been renamed NeuroFocus Europe and will continue to be led by its managing director Thom Noble. Peter Laybourne, who co-founded Neuroco with Noble, will “collaborate” with the company going forward in his role as chairman of brand planning agency Fathom International.

Both NeuroFocus and Neuroco use EEG-based neurological testing to measure a consumer's attention levels, emotional engagement and memory retention while they are exposed to stimuli such as adverts, brands and products.

The deal is the result of several months of work behind the scenes, according to Noble, who told Research: “We got to a point where we had developed good methodologies across a range of different areas and the next natural thing was to scale up globally, so we were looking for partners and investors.

“It made perfect sense to have conversations with NeuroFocus, as they are the global leaders and have Nielsen's backing.”

Noble will now oversee NeuroFocus's planned European expansion, with interest coming from potential clients in Greece, Portugal, Italy, Spain, Hungary and Turkey.

In the UK and mainstream European markets, he said there has been a “marked upswing” in companies turning to neuromarketing to test marketing campaigns, adverts and products – despite the global recession.

He said: “The beauty of EEG is that it's very accurate and very applicable and gives companies more return on investment in their marketing spend.”

EEG – short for electroencephalography – measures human response to stimuli by detecting electrical activity in the brain, and Noble said use of the technology for marketing purposes was on the verge of a “tipping point”.

“There has been an underlying frustration among more progressive marketers about their inability to understand how people are responding to stimulus at a neurological level,” he said. “In a few years people will be asking ‘Why aren't we doing it?' instead of ‘Why should we?'.”

Author: James Verrinder

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