Research Article
The Conscious Choice of Homo Evolutis: Can Fronto-Parietal EEG Activations Predict the Consumer Choice of Sustainable Products?
Sungkyunkwan University
Published: January 2013 · Vol. 42, No. 3 · pp. 805-821
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Abstract
Increasingly, companies are inspired by the call of sustainability management. Companies with the sustainable orientation pursue triple business objectives with the aim of protecting people and the planet Earth as well as creating economic profits. The current research examines consumers’ brain wave responses to the products that are sold under the sustainability management initiatives. In the current market, sustainable products, such as fair trade or eco-friendly products tend to incur higher costs to consumers than do most conventional alternative products. Therefore, it is not easy for ordinary consumers to choose sustainable products with high price over cheaper and readily available conventional alternatives. In this neuromarketing study, the neural responses of 41 consumers were recorded using electroencephalography (EEG). Two product categories of cups of coffee and travel mugs were used in the experiments. Subjects were given information about the product features and the price of a sustainable product and a conventional product, and asked to choose a product they intended to purchase. While they were reading information about the product features and the price, their brain waves from the frontal and parietal lobes were recorded and analyzed. The results showed that there were stronger frontal theta and gamma activations while consumers were reading sustainable product features, compared to conventional product features. In addition, significantly higher alpha activations in the fronto-parietal network were found among the consumers who chose sustainable products over conventional products.
