Politics of neuromarketing
The politics of neuromarketing is this idea of using advertisements to convince the mind of a voter to vote for a certain party.
Is it possible to scan a voters brain to determine if a candidate’s political message is effective or not? Can you make a person vote in a particular manner using neuromarketing techniques? Though this might sound like science fiction, neuromarketing is already a part of the election campaigns within the United States.
In the 2006 reelection of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Schwarzenegger was trailing his Democratic opponent in the polls. Schwarzenegger’s theme in this campaign was whether or not the voters would want to continue Schwarzenegger’s reforms or go back to the days of the recalled governor, Gray Davis.
In normal political marketing, voters would use detail, numbers, facts and figures to determine if they were better off under the incumbent governor. However, with neuromarketing, voters were shown powerful advertisement visuals. These visuals tried to influence voters’ emotions and to convince voters that Schwarzenegger was the better candidate.
The ethics of political neuromarketing is debatable. Some argue that political neuromarketing will cause voters to make rash decisions while others argue that these messages are beneficial because they depict what the politicians can do. Neuromarketing might make voters blind to the reality of things. Voters might be swayed by how powerful the advertisements seem to be while failing to understand the political ability or political agenda of the candiate.
Other people disagree with this idea. Darryl Howard, a Republican consultant, said he crafted “neuromarketing-based messages for TV, direct mail and speeches for Senate, Congressional and Gubernatorial clients in 2010.” Howard also said that the advertisements that were presented were honest. Neuromarketing techniques were only used to determine which political advertisements were most effective.