The distribution of free samples is known to be an effective tool for sales promotion. By means of event-related brain potentials (ERPs), the present study examined whether tasting a food sample has a stronger effect on brand perception than merely reading a leaflet about the product. Thirty-two university students were asked to read a leaflet about a certain confection brand (target product, either baked cake or chocolate) with or without tasting a sample (n = 16 each). They then performed a category classification task in which 12 colored pictures of different confection brand packages (six baked cakes and six chocolates) were presented one by one in a random order. The participants’ task was to press a button whenever the pictures of the designated confection category (i.e., the category other than the category of the target product) appeared on the screen. ERP responses to the target brand and the other five brands in the same category were compared. The results showed that the specific effect of sampling appeared only from about 500 ms. The target brand elicited a larger late positive potential (LPP) than the other brands only for the participants who sampled it. The findings suggest that, compared with merely reading the information about a product, tasting a sample makes the brand more motivationally salient than the other brands in the same food category.

Using a full-head-scale 48ch near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) machine (a system used to visualize brain function), we evaluated brain imaging reactions with regard to four items that are often discussed in the context of direct mail marketing services, namely the difference between paper and electronic media, the difference between a one-time and multiple presentations, the presence or absence of a byname, and the relative number of products being presented.
For the presentation of a small number of items with names that were posted repeatedly using paper media, signal intensity was found to be heightened in the prefrontal cortex.
Findings obtained using neuromarketing methods indicate that these methods offer indispensable tools for the development of products and services that engage reward systems, or in other words, engage consumer desire.

Consumer behaviors are shaped by fundamental motives: affiliation, self-protection, status attainment, mate attraction, mate retention, and child-rearing. It has been argued that each fundamental motive is activated by cues pertaining to threats or opportunities linked with each fundamental motive, and may be based on qualitatively different cognitive and neural systems. Steroid hormones influence specific neural systems and consumer behaviors rooted in diverse fundamental motives. By taking steroid sex hormones as examples of internal cues, we suggested that at least three fundamental motives (status attainment, mate attraction, and mate retention) may be explained by common cognitive and neural mechanisms. Consumer behaviors rooted in diverse fundamental motives, including status attainment, mate attraction, and mate retention, may be commonly explained by social motivations/vigilance (amygdala) and reward processing (reward-related brain regions). Neuroscientific tools may be useful for refining the fundamental motive framework, and for understanding more fully consumer behaviors rooted in evolutionary motives.

The present study aimed to explore the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying the evaluation of oral presentations. The top 10 and bottom 10 TED presentations were selected from over 2,000 TED talks based on viewer ratings. Thin slices from these 20 videos were used as stimuli. The first experiment showed that the original ratings could be represented by evaluations of 30-sec clips. In the second experiment, fMRI BOLD signals from viewers were examined while they watched the thin-sliced TED talks. The results showed significantly greater activation in the parts of the occipitotemporal cortex related to visual motion and social cognition while watching the top 10 clips than when watching the bottom 10 clips. In the third experiment, the magnitude of motion in the video clips, as quantified by motion vectors, differed significantly between two distinct presentation groups. These results provide comprehensive evidence for the importance of presenter actions for oral presentations to be evaluated highly by audiences.