In my 2nd book I made the statement that many universities are now teaching neuromarketing. Prof Byron Sharpe questioned this and I started a group on LinkedIn to see what the status is.
http://www.linkedin.com/groupItem?view=&gid=2017255&type=member&item=29857069&qid=017d5f04-070a-4fde-8d40-fb0ef883c205&goback=%2Egmp_2017255
At the same time Anabel started a discusion on where she can do a PhD in neuromarketing:
http://www.linkedin.com/groupItem?view=&gid=852427&type=member&item=19094979&qid=c4d852de-1ef9-4cdc-a6a8-8f0b60be679d&goback=%2Egmp_852427
It seems that other than Melbourne Uni in Australias there are no clear answers at this stage (Oct 2010).
The obvious problem is: Where does one get faculty?
There is a chicken and egg situation.
What makes this even more intriguing is that I ran into a discusion about the value of neuromarketing in Australia, ending up being bruised but not hurt by the anonymous contributors to the discusion, where a lot of the discusion was about whether the innitiator. Brooke Ward, was qualified to make comments about neuromarketing because she does not have peered reviewed published papers, or the relevant academic qualifications (she has a degree in psychology).
http://mumbrella.com.au/neuromarketing-aka-clutching-at-straws-34347
Obviously, with no university teaching an acknowldeged post graduate course in neuromarketing it becomes a moot point as to what qualifiactions her detractors has.
I started teaching a course at the Copenhagen Business School that would qualify as a neuromarketing course in 2007 untill 2009, under Prof. Flemming Hansen. In the last year we had 180 post-graduate MBA students.
We had nowhere we could reference as to what should be included in such a course. Largely I made it up trying to approach the subject from my experience as a market researcher and using marketing databases and to provide a perspective on neuroscience. Mostly working from my book The Advertised Mind.
It made sense to me that if the topic is neuromarketing then I am not going to teach neuroscience, but try to talk about the intersection of neuroscience and marketing.
The course at Copenhagen Business School has been taken over by a full time Professor (Thomas Ramsoy) who is a neuropsychologist, with assistance from marketing lecturers.
It really goes without saying that with neuro-science in various ways is begining to understand better how people make decisions, and since many decisions that people make involve choosing a brand, neuroscience's findings will impact on marketing.
What most people do not recognise at this stage is that this is happening at two levels:
- Philosophically the influence of Damasio's somatic marker theorem (i.e. Damasio's error) is big, but is about the role of emotions and their influence on rationality;
- The ability to now measure at reasonable cost what happens in the brain via fMRI and EEG.
If one reads the debate at mumbrella (http://mumbrella.com.au/neuromarketing-aka-clutching-at-straws-34347) then it is clear that most of the participants equate the term neuromarketing mainly to the ability to measure brain activity via EEG. (I would argue they are missing the much bore important contribution by Damasio and his somatic marker theorem as far as implications for marketing is concerned - or even when they recognise it they tend to misinterpret him).
Given the state of play of neuromarketing as a science, and something that should be taught at universities, I am opening this page so that I can post contributions from academics on what they think should be taught, questions and debates. (Now that I am not an academic I have no politics to play.)
(You can use the little form below, or send me mail erik@impact.co.za
Dr. Shane Moon (Australia) suggests:
Erik,
Here are my two cents on how a course might look based on subjects I have taken over the years (note the subject titles are an adaptation of what they actually were due not remembering):
Topic Area I: Human Behaviour social sciences
Subjects:
* anthropology- primate behaviour
* social psychology
* sociology of culture
* sensation and perception
* motivation
* physiology of behaviour
* neuropsychology
* philosophy
* evolutionary psychology
* psychological theories (cognitive, behavioural, psychodynamic etc)
Topic Area II: Research Methods
Subjects:
* qualitative and quantitative methods
* parametric and non parametric statistics
* report writing and presentation skills
* conducting actual projects
Topic Area III: Biological and Math Sciences
Subjects:
* biology
* human physiology and anatomy
* neuroanatomy and physiological psychology
* Signal processing theory and practice (mine was part of physiological psych and not enough in my opinon so a separate subject altogether if one wants to specialise in the 'back end' analytic side)
Topic Area IV: Commerce and Marketing
Subjects:
* Finance and Economics (I think I would have done behavioural economics if it would have been around!)
* Strategic Management
* Marketing Management
* Marketing Communications
* Strategic Entrepreneurship and Globalisation
Method of delivery:
- I have always been a stronger believer in completing major research projects and presentations versus test taking (was never a strong test taker unless it was written) - I think the former teaching/ learning method allows for deeper learning to occur as opposed to the latter - test taking, which is pretty superficial learning in my experience -. By doing major projects/presentation a student can obtain both the depth and breadth without sacrifice not to mention presenting is a skill that might as well be learned early on in ones career.
Research and Publishing:
- Personally, I haven't published anything to date, to all my supervisors/ peers/ family frustrations, but I have never commenced anything with the desired outcome to publish it - it has always been the journey of finding the answers to my multitude of questions so when I get some of them I move on to the next... not to mention I lack the expressive language capability of accomplished publishers and the time it takes and the number of revisions is not that palatable to me against the self imposed pressures of time in life. Nonetheless, if someone is so inclined to publish their work - I think it is critically important to keep the knowledge moving forward.
Practical Experience:
- I think this area is so vastly under utilised against classroom theory - and I don't just mean applied experience in the taken subjects - its about actually 'living and working' in the real world - I worked all through uni as a builder, a shopkeeper, gas plant operator, scaffolder, office assistant so many different experiences - during undergrad so by the time I got to post grad I had so much more to offer as a lecturer; and the fields of study (e.g. sport psychology, forensic psychology, clinical psychology). So as you can probably tell, I am a big believer in just getting out there and doing something in life because it all contributes to where one is heading regardless of whether or not one actually knows where they are going. Eg. if someone wants to work in FMCG then get a job as a shop assistant/ stockist/ check out person in the local supermarket - no better way to understand the 'reality' of consumers and businesses!
For a single subject such as what Phil is doing at melb uni: I think at a minimum it should contain
* sociology of cultures
* psychological theories
* sensation and perception
* physiology of behaviour and physiological psychology (can link elements together)
* human physiology and anatomy/neuroanatomy (more emphasis on neuro)
* qualitative/quantitative research methods (looking at market research specifically)
* marketing and communications (could jam them together really)
Best regards,
Shane
