MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — Middle Tennessee State University assistant professor of marketing Gaia Rancati takes pride in preparing her students for the fast-paced technological changes in the growing field, which is why she introduced new software using artificial intelligence, better known as AI, to her neuromarketing class to improve students’ collection and analysis of buyer behavior.

“The new neuromarketing course at the Jennings A. Jones College of Business Department of Marketing offers students a unique opportunity to delve into the intersection of consumer neuroscience and marketing,” Rancati said. 

“Leveraging advanced tools like iMotion Online for Education, students gain hands-on experience in designing and analyzing studies using AI-powered eye-tracking and facial expression analysis.”

Rancati knows iMotion and its benefits well, since she’s a brand ambassador for the company, which led to her advocating for the introduction of the software into her class.

The program “combines quantitative surveys, eye-tracking and facial expression analysis, allowing our students to gain hands-on experience with AI-based research using only their laptops,” Rancati said. “Students can design studies, collect data through shareable links, perform analysis and create visuals for presentations.”

Looking at ‘how consumers really act and behave’

The neuromarketing class itself recently launched as well, but its newness didn’t stop it from quickly becoming recognized on campus. The course won the MTSU Grant for Teaching and Research Innovation in 2023.

This semester, the course gave students the opportunity to hear from three industry professionals: Steve Genco, a consumer scientist and author of the class’s textbook; Jessica Wilson, the global director of iMotions; and Matteo Venerucci, a research scientist and head of training at Tobii, a company that studies eye-tracking.

“We’re taking a look at the scientific methods behind market research that throws some of the traditional marketing research methods out in favor of more scientific, provable methods that take a look at how consumers really act and behave,” said Nate Sosville, a senior marketing major. “The standard assumptions of those consumer behaviors have been disproven over time.”

The 21-year old from Chattanooga said he enjoys working with AI because “it uses information that’s been aggregated from a lot of humans and their behaviors and their ways of communicating.”

“The use of AI will be interesting, especially in conducting sites like this (iMotion) where we can use generated content since it’s very akin to how a normal person would produce a type of content,” he continued.

Rancati built the course because “understanding the underlying psychological mechanisms that drive consumer behavior is crucial,” she said. 

The class explores how insights from neuroscience and psychology can be applied to enhance marketing strategies by delving into the brain’s role in decision-making processes, emphasizing nonconscious influences that affect consumer choices, she continued.

AI ‘can help you out with any career’

Students will learn how to build a study and collect and analyze the data like neuromarketers by looking at key concepts such as attention, memory and emotion to analyze their studies, Rancati explained.

Additionally, the course includes hands-on projects where students will design behavioral nudges, which is using psychological insights to influence buyer behavior, and analyze data from eye-tracking studies while also evaluating the ethical implications of using neuromarketing techniques in real-world scenarios, she continued.

Ashna Goel, a 21-year-old junior accounting major, explained that each slide of the project has an image of a food and its nutrition facts and ingredients with the goal of determining “where people’s eyes fall looking at different information about the same product,” so that each group can analyze the data to create a presentation of their findings.

The Brentwood native said this class will benefit her desired future career of an accountant because she’s “going to be with numbers all the time, and if I go into the analysis aspect, this will be super helpful with looking at numbers and interpreting them into graphs and being able to find meaning in the data.”

Kayla Welker, a 20-year-old from Bartlett, said she enjoys the class because “it’s a new perspective that you’re not getting in most of your classes.”

“It (AI) can help you out with any career, and you don’t know how much it’s going to take over. That’s the scary part,” the junior marketing major said. “It really could help you instead of taking your job like some people say.”

Developing state’s first on-campus neuromarketing lab

Rancati wears many hats. She’s developing Tennessee’s first neuromarketing lab on campus for students.

“The lab is currently equipped with devices like eye-tracking, galvanic skin response, electrocardiogram, facial expressions and the implicit association test,” Rancati said. “Since the opening in 2022 it has run several neuromarketing studies presented at the American Marketing Association and at the Academy of Marketing Science.”

She explained that the lab’s research is focused on retail, online shopping, the metaverse and artificial intelligence, such as robots, voice assistants and chatbots.

The lab is the co-founder of the American Network of Neuromarketing Labs Affectively Research and partners with Dartmouth College and Rowan University in the U.S., Vrjie University in Belgium, University of York in the United Kingdom, and Politecnico di Milano and Sapienza University of Rome, both in Italy.

The lab is closed for renovation until February 2025 in order to expand from one room to three and from one neuromarketing station to three. It will reopen on March 19, 2025, with a distinguished lecture series hosted by the Department of Marketing with speakers from around the world. 

The symposium will consist of a series of short talks on the topics of neuromarketing and AI. It will be open to the public at the State Farm Lecture Hall on campus and available to stream. Details on the time to come.

— Maddy Williams (Maddy.Williams@mtsu.edu)