Asking people what brands they like isn’t always an accurate way of finding out what they’ll buy. Neuromarketing may have a solution: why ask consumers questions, when you can just scan their brains?

In the 1970s and ‘80s, drinks company Pepsi used psychology to help demonstrate how people perceived its brand. It used blind-taste tests that found that consumers preferred the taste of Pepsi to that of arch- rival Coca Cola. And yet, as far as the sales numbers were concerned, Coca Cola continued to be the flavour of choice.

So what happened? Neuroscientist Read Montague attempted to understand this phenomenon better by using fMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) surveillance. He scanned people’s brains during the taste tests, and discovered the majority of those given a blind-sample showed significantly higher activity in the region of the brain associated with feelings of reward.

When Montague revealed in advance which of the options was Coca Cola and which was Pepsi, however, almost every participant said they preferred the taste of the Coke – and their brain activity supported this. The frontal cortex, an area linked to higher-level rational thought, showed activity. This suggested that memories and existing brand opinions were involved in the decision making. In other words, Coke’s branding was actually overriding the senses.

Fast forward to 2011, and neuroscience is being used regularly by big consumer brands to test how people might engage with new products and advertising campaigns. They are doing this with tools borrowed from the medical industry. Neuroimaging, a category of device that includes fMRI, are the main set of tools. They were once the sole reserve of medical research, identifying blood clots and diagnosing brain disorders. Now, with more portability and affordability, a number of neuroscientists and marketers have combined to apply these techniques to the consumer mind, scanning and highlighting areas of the brain activated through increased blood flow when performing a task.