By Carly Smith

Eric Kogelschatz first learned about neuromarketing while attending graduate school at Michigan State University. After reading the NYTimes article “There’s a Sucker Born in Every Medial Prefrontal Cortex” and watching the PBS program “Frontline: The Persuaders” Kogelschatz’s ideas about advertising changed.

“From my perspective, the institution of advertising is defined as the communication of product or service related information in a persuasive manner. However, after reading this article and watching the program, I began to realize that advertising, coalesced with cognitive neuroscience (neuromarketing), would allow marketers to change overt consumer behavior by influencing emotional and rational attitudes, beliefs and motivations,” said Kogelschatz.

“With the advent of neuromarketing, neuroscientists and researchers have been directing their expertise to marketing, using MRIs to analyze consumers’ brain activity when exposed to different stimuli,” said Kogelschatz. He said that companies like Google are using math to develop advertising strategies.

While working at Modernista! in Boston, Kogelschatz started a band with three neuroscientists. During practice, the band mates would often talk about neuroscience. This led Kogelschatz to start rethinking his beliefs on advertising and science. “I often thought about neuroscience in relation to my research and experience in advertising,” said Kogelschatz. This led him to write the blog post titled “The Convergence of Cognitive Neuroscience and Marketing.” After the success of the post, Kogelschatz decided to submit a panel proposition to SXSWi.

“My hope is that the panel audience will observe an in-depth analysis of the convergence of neuroscience and marketing and gain a subjective perspective on the topic based on emotional and rational information,” said Kogelschatz.

Kogelschatz has extensively researched the convergence of neuroscience and marketing, digital music innovation, digital technology and urban revitalization. He is currently putting together his panel for SXSWi 2010. The panel will include innovative speakers in the areas of neuroscience, advertising and neuromarketing. Kogelschatz’s panel will answer questions such as: what is neuromarketing? Is advertising an art or science? Is neuromarketing ethical? Will digital marketers become scientists and mathematicians or will creativity triumph?

For more information about Eric and his work, please visit www.erickogelschatz.com.