NeuroFocus Tracks Perception of Luxury

US-based neuromarketing agency NeuroFocus has developed the Luxury Perceptual Framework (LPF), to detect consumers' perception of what constitutes 'luxury' in terms of clients' brands, products, packaging, in-store marketing, advertising and customer service.

Nielsensponsored NeuroFocus captures consumers' responses at the subconscious level through EEG-based full-brain measurements. Last month, the firmintroduced the N-Matrix 3D virtual shopper insights system, to enable companies to test product designs, packaging and entire store layouts in three dimensions.

Founder and CEO Dr A K Pradeep says that its new LPF model has revealed that in times of economic uncertainty, the brain seeks out 'little moments of luxury' - or small amounts of pleasure and satisfaction in daily life.

The framework comprises eight dimensions which define a consumer's perception of luxury:

• MORE - offering more than what is normally regarded as 'necessary or needed' causes the subconscious to make the association with luxury.
• VARIETY - offering a variety of features to choose from is perceived by the subconscious mind as a representation of luxury.
• PURPOSE - linkage to a socially respectable cause provides the luxury of a 'sense of nobility'.
• RARE and UNIQUE - the subconscious aspires to possess what is perceived as the unique, rare or unavailable.
• TIME and LABOR - that someone has labored to make something specific for a consumer, evokes a subconscious perception of luxury.
• ME - the concept that something is personalized attaches a luxury valuation to it.
• CARE and DETAILS - the attention to small details triggers a response within the subconscious that links directly to luxury.
• AESTHETICS - higher aesthetic value is automatically equated with luxury.

'Smart marketers who look for ways to fulfill our universal but deeply-submerged yearning for luxury, especially in difficult economic times, are likely to reap rewards in terms of purchase intent and brand loyalty,' Pradeep explained. 'The LPF forms a fundamental game plan for the battle of the brand and the 'little moments of luxury' that NeuroFocus uncovered, can gain an outsize marketplace advantage.'

Web site: www.neurofocus.com .