The news comes just days after the Advertising Research Foundation announced that eight other neuromarketing and biometric research firms are taking part in a trial of their methods, with a view to agreeing industry standards.

Dr AK Pradeep, CEO of NeuroFocus, told Research today that his firm had not joined the ARF study because it does not see the need for a trial, and because of competition concerns relating to “the way the ARF neurotrial is set up”.

Representatives of the ARF were not available for comment today.

Pradeep said that as a “first stage” its neuromarketing standards will be made available on request to any company that wants to embed them as part of its business practices, and that he would be “delighted” to share them with the ARF too.

The standards, he said, have been developed by NeuroFocus through years of work and are designed to be in line with the Six Sigma and Total Quality Management business operational guidelines.

Pradeep said he felt the ARF’s planned trial “wasn’t the right way to go about it”. He said NeuroFocus’ secientific team had already submitted its work for peer review and established its reputation “beyond question”.

“We have been counselling the ARF that the way to derive standards in the field of neuroscience is the same approach we should use in the tech arena, like network servers or wireless standards,” he said. “If you look at how those are developed, nobody has a network server trial or wireless trial – leading suppliers sit down and figure out standards.”

The ARF’s study is supported by the likes of General Motors, Hershey’s and American Express, and is led by Duane Varan of the Disney Media and Advertising Research Lab.

The supplier companies taking part in the ARF initiative are Innerscope, Mindlab International, MSW/LAB, NeuroCompass, Neuro Insight, Neurosense, Sands Research, and Sensory Logic.