About
Mission
Neuromarketing is an important part of the Department’s curriculum, as the field has become an increasing and recognized indispensable field of marketing research over the past ten years. We already see many renowned business schools doing research within the field of neuromarketing, contributing to its maturity and bringing new knowledge to marketing, especially in relation to non-conscious influences to consumer behavior. Decision Neuroscience Research Cluster (DNRC) aims to be an acknowledged research center in Scandinavia and in the world providing research and education at top level within the field of neuromarketing.
Vision
The vision for the DNRC is to provide research within the following six overall themes: (1) consumer neuroscience, (2) emotions, impulsivity and decision-making, (3) creativity and innovation, (4) consciousness, attention and perception, (5) social interaction and emotion regulation, and (6) aesthetics and design.
The common objective for said research themes is to improve our understanding of phenomena and responses that humans have difficulties to put words on. In particular, research projects focus on low-level cognitive mechanisms at stake, when exposed to different types of stimuli or manipulations, as well as their influence on and interactions with high-level processing.
Research projects are different in both length and character. Research projects can be simple and related to only one of the six themes, and research projects can include multiple themes and extend over a long period of time.
The DNRC aims to provide marketing research at a high academic level. The AJG journal ranking list will act as the main list for target marketing journals. Due to the nature of neuroscience, some research may be publishable in journals other than marketing journals and even in journals outside the AJG list. Yet, the contribution from the DNRC should be comparable in quality to journals ranked as AJG 3/4/4*.
Inter-disciplinary and collaborative projects in research and education
The DNRC is the home base for projects in the borderland between brain research and behavioral research. Research projects carried out at the DNRC are positioned at the intersection of consumer neuroscience, marketing, and behavioral economics. In other words, the cluster sees the research contribution as inter-disciplinary, combining research from consumer behavior, economics, psychology, and cognitive neuroscience.
The inter-disciplinary approach requires researchers in the cluster to be able to utilize different methodological skills and technologies. It also requires the ability to set up and run neuroscientific experiments and, not least, it requires the ability to make use of and get access to neuroscientific resources that are located outside Copenhagen Business School. The DNRC sees the value in these links to likeminded academic organizations and uses the Ph.D. positions to create new research connections.
SenseLab
The DNRC runs the SenseLab, a test laboratory at Department with facilities for stationary and mobile equipment, aiming to run experiments with brain scanning (EEG), high-resolution eye-tracking, galvanic skin response (GSR), and response time measurements. In order to have access to other resources such as MRI-scanners or newly developed equipment techniques within the field of biometrics, the DNRC works closely with other local and international neuroscientific communities and providers of both hard-ware and soft-ware. The Danish Research Centre for Magnetic Resonance at Copenhagen University Hospital is an example on our network.
Inclusion of practice
In order to extend the relation to society, the DNRC runs an exclusive forum called Club Yarbus, offering companies the opportunity to gain special insights into relevant and newest neuromarketing research. Members of this forum become updated on the latest research within the field of neuromarketing through our web-site and network seminars. The bigger idea behind Club Yarbus is to provide an opportunity for exchanging knowledge between industry and academia in an open community.
Club Yarbus further provides the opportunity for leading marketers to discuss neuromarketing research issues of common relevance for their business with researchers affiliated to the DNRC. Members are invited a couple of times a year for a half-day seminar where relevant research questions are discussed, and new findings within the field of neuromarketing will be presented. A Club Yarbus seminar is also an opportunity for the industry to meet master students with both theoretical and practical competences in bio-metric and neuro-metric techniques.
A membership to Club Yarbus is relevant for various types of companies, which could be brand owners, consultancies, or service providers who want to be at the forefront in measuring subliminal processes in a market research. Club Yarbus is exclusive for its members and there will be a yearly payment for membership.
Wider society
Brand owners acknowledge the value in understanding consumers’ non-conscious responses when developing their marketing strategy and/or investing in brand equity. The same can be said about Danish authorities, who find these insights into consumers’ non-conscious processes highly important and relevant for legislation and guidelines for marketing promotion. This is relevant both from the perspective of market regulation and protection of vulnerable consumers.
In order to ensure brand innovation and to develop best brand strategies, it is crucial to address neuromarketing and indeed stakeholders’ ability for having critical reflections on newest contributions within marketing consultancies. Future employees need knowledge about neuromarketing in order to operate in a multichannel market.