Advertising memory: The power of mirror neurons

As part of the insights of neuroscience available for the study of advertising, the concept of mirror neurons provides opportunities for new research. Mirror neurons are a particular class of visuomotor neurons in the brain that show activity both when an individual performs an action and when he observes another individual performing the same action. According to researchers in cognitive neuroscience, mirror neurons are the brain basis for learning by imitation. The observation of 2 types of movement specifically causes the mirror neurons activation: "grasping with the hand" and "bringing to the mouth." This article seeks to show that TV commercials, in which a character grabs a food product and brings it to his mouth, are more effective. To investigate this research question we designed a between-subjects experiment (n = 130) to compare the memorization of 2 versions of the same ad (featuring an unfamiliar mineral water brand). In the first ad version, the character grabs the product, while there is no contact between the product and the character in the second version. The article outlines that memory was higher in the grasping and drinking condition. Although we cannot conclusively say that the mirror neurons were activated when people saw the character grabbing the product in the ad, the literature on mirror neurons provides an explanatory framework for the observed results. In other words, this study points out that the discovery of mirror neurons is a very new concept for marketing, which can enrich our understanding of advertising processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved)