Finland's first neuromarketing dissertation will undergo a public examination at LUT University in Lappeenranta on Friday 5 December 2025. Jarmo Heinonen, doctoral candidate in business, has studied consumer choices by combining magnetic resonance imaging of the brain with marketing research methods.
“Conventional marketing research investigates conscious choices made by consumers, but neuromarketing examines subconscious ones. My own research dealt simultaneously with conscious and subconscious choices by combining research methods in a new way,” says Heinonen.
Research methods
- Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is a medical imaging technique that detects changes in blood flow and oxygenation associated with brain activity. It enables scanning the parts of the brain where decisions are made.
- The fMRI technique can identify specific moments that capture a consumer’s attention. It requires the help of conjoint analysis, which can decompose a decision into individual attributes.
- Conjoint analysis is a multivariate method used in marketing research. It enables examining a product’s individual features, such as price. The analysis helps determine the relative importance of features in consumer decisions.
Simultaneous study of subconscious and conscious activity
An estimated 85 per cent of our decisions are based on subconscious choices and only 15 per cent on conscious ones. Consumers are not always able to put their subconscious wishes into words and are sensitive to social impacts, such as friends’ choices. Neuroscience techniques, including magnetic resonance imaging, enable studying decision-making in the brain without influencing the decisions in any way. In conventional marketing research, the respondent may echo the researcher or even lie, but neuroscience tools detect this.
“Research participants lie down in a tubular fMRI scanner, watch videos, and then make choices or state their opinions about what they see,” Heinonen explains.
What does the brain scan show?
A customer's interest in a product provokes activation in the insular cortex, and activation in the amygdala indicates fright. However, the scan does not reveal individual features that capture a consumer’s attention.
“The brain processes objects as packages of features that compose a seamless entity. A consumer may see a car as nothing more than a means of transport, but the retailer may want to know what shades, engines, or interiors to offer the customer.”
Sometimes, the problem may be that for a customer, one specific feature dictates all other features. For example, a wealthy customer may consider Maranello red as the only acceptable colour for a Ferrari, but for other makes, the colour is irrelevant. For a Ferrari, the colour is the decisive feature on which the sale hinges.
“Conjoint analysis helps determine the relative importance of features in consumer decisions, but it does not pinpoint the decisive one. That’s where fMRI comes in,” maintains Heinonen.
The method applied by Heinonen offers companies a new approach to marketing and product design. It is estimated that the product failure rate on the market is around 80–90 percent, depending on how it is calculated, but an effective predictive research method can reduce the risk of failure.
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More information
Jarmo Heinonen
Jarmo.Heinonen@laurea.fi
Heinonen will defend his doctoral dissertation Conjoint-fMRI in Neuromarketing Research in Lappeenranta on Friday 5 December at noon.
