Neuromarketin

g Research
Example: Frito
Lay Case
Study
Neuromarketing Research Example: Frito Lay Case Study
Your customer is always more likely to have an intuitive,
effortless, and “on-the-fly” reaction to your brand, long before
engaging in product research.

It was in 2010 that researcher Leon Żurawicki proposed the

predominance of subconscious drivers over conscious reasoning,
when it comes to making purchase decisions. In other words,
your customer is always more likely to have an intuitive,
effortless, and “on-the-fly” reaction to your brand, long before
engaging in product research.

Hence, Emotional Branding enters the picture along with

neuromarketing research example.
 Neuromarketing, as an effective customer engagement and
persuasion technique, becomes more feasible when you
consider that 95% of purchase decisions are controlled by our
subconscious, according to Gerald Zaltman, Professor, Harvard
Business School.

70% of customers who feel emotionally connected to a brand

spend twice as much on purchases, and over 80% of this group
will also recommend their preferred brands to friends and
family; this is why it is essential to engage customers on an
emotional and deeply personal level.

We have already witnessed classic examples of emotional

branding. We’re going to study one such example in this blog.
Frito Lay –
Neuromarketing
Research
Example
Lay’s has been a go-to when it comes to packet snacks. How does it
manage to lure its target audience apart from rewarding everyone’s
taste buds?

We’re going to see.

Selling salty chips to guys isn’t all that difficult. As the classic Lay’s
commercial noted, “You can’t eat just one!”

Give a guy a chip, and the entire bag is empty in minutes! For
women, though, salty foods are the snack of choice just 14% of the
time. They prefer sweet snacks (25%) and, amazingly, healthier
items like fruits and vegetables (61%). Disturbed that women might
prefer carrot sticks to potato chips, Frito Lay decided to get inside
women’s heads.
Frito Lay began by hiring Juniper Park to look at how differences in women’s brains
might affect their snacking decisions:

Ms. Nykoliation (president of Juniper Park) began by researching how women’s brains
compared with men’s, so the firm could adjust the marketing accordingly.

Her research suggested that the communication center in women’s brains was more
developed, which meant that women could process ads with more complexity and
more pieces of information.

A memory and emotional center, the hippocampus, was proportionally larger in

women, so Ms. Nykoliation concluded that women look for characters they could
empathize and relate with. Research by Ms. Nykoliation indicated that the brain area
that processes decision-making was larger in women, consequently leading to
feelings of guilt.
Not guilty!
The idea of guilt proved to be significant when it seemed
to be supported by women’s journal entries, another
part of the project. The study found that many women
carry a variety of guilt feelings around.

This realization led to a major packaging redesign – the

new bags were designed to prevent triggering guilt
reactions.

They did so by avoiding the look of traditional chip bags

and instead of featuring pictures of healthy ingredients
on a beige coloured matte finished bag.
The ads developed for the Baked Lays campaign were then further refined by
testing at Neurofocus. They are a neuromarketing firm that uses EEGs and
biometric data to measure brain activity and viewer response to
advertisements.

Part of the strategy was to tone down the packaging and showing off healthy
ingredients in the snacks.

“She wants a reminder that she’s eating something better for herself,” Mr. Jones
said.

Baked Lay’s will no longer be in a shiny yellow bag, but in a matte beige bag that
displays pictures of the ingredients like spices or ranch dressing.

The accompanying advertising campaign, “Only in a Woman’s World,” has

already begun running teaser spots. The campaign features four cartoon
women who are “fab, funny, fearlessly female,” as the Web site puts it, who talk
about exercising, eating and other topics.
 How Lay’s Smile Campaign was customized for
each global market
Another neuromarketing example is the Lay’s Potato Chip
“Operation Smile” bags campaign. It is brilliant! A product
packaging rebrand that brings experiential marketing to a multi-
layered level. Each potato chip flavour has its own redesign, with
the very top of the bag portraying a different smile. After all,
smiling is contagious.

They kicked off the ‘Smiles’ campaign for the second year in a row
by featuring 31 selfies and their personal stories on the packaging
of Lay’s potato chips.

Lay’s has laid its foundation quite strong by connecting with its
customers on a neurological level. Stay connected with us to come
up with your A-grade marketing strategies!
Moral of the story: Application of neuromarketing is the key to make your
brand the best of your arena! Reach out to us now!

We will help you build a marketing plan with such a neuromarketing research
example.