The New York Times reported on the recent Nielsen acquisition: NeuroFocus, a firm specializing in studying brain wave activity for marketing purposes. Ironically, the advertising agencies most likely interested in the service would register zero brain wave activity among senior-level executives.
A Nielsen Acquisition Focused on Brain Waves
By Stuart Elliott
The Nielsen Company has acquired the rest of a company, NeuroFocus, that specializes in the nascent realm of researching whether neuroscience can be applied to advertising.
Nielsen said on Thursday that it now owned 100 percent of NeuroFocus; Nielsen bought a 30 percent stake in the company in 2008. The financial terms were not disclosed.
NeuroFocus specializes in measuring brain wave activity. It is among several companies seeking to delve into the motivation behind consumer behavior.
Those research efforts have generated some controversy over how such research ought to proceed — and whether it is worth pursuing. The deal was announced three days after Mediapost said it was going to be made. At that time, Nielsen declined to comment on Mediapost’s report.
NeuroFocus, which is based in Berkeley, Calif., will become part of the Nielsen product innovation practice, Nielsen said, and would continue to be led by its chief executive, A.K. Pradeep.
Mr. Pradeep was at the center of a recent dispute with the Advertising Research Foundation. The foundation had worked with neuroscience researchers to come up with its first standards for neuromarketing and asked NeuroFocus to participate.
Not only did NeuroFocus decline to participate, it issued its own separate neuromarketing standards.
Mediapost reported that the decision by Nielsen to buy the remaining 70 percent of NeuroFocus that it did not own came after WPP tried to buy NeuroFocus.
WPP, in addition to owning advertising agencies like Grey and Ogilvy & Mather, also has extensive holdings in advertising and marketing research like Kantar and TNS.
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