Marketing has always tried to influence customers into purchasing a company's product, so it was only a matter of time before technology and advances in science helped defined more clearly what it is that makes people specially interested in a particular item for consumption, and what elements of that product can make a person embark on good feelings and/or memories. In that sense, the notion that neuromarketing is "bad" because it bypasses people's will of sharing information with marketers is a too radical of a stance in my opinion. As stated in the Times magazine article
The Brain: Marketing To Your Mind by Alice Park, Neuroscience could open the door for the marketing field to remove a lot of rudimentary measures such as focus groups questionnaires and other similar studies of a population where the answers are inevitably subject to a certain degree of bias. Neuroscience is more of an instrument to reduce uncertainty in research, and in turn, both companies and the customer could benefit from these new investigative methods, since it could help business understand better the customer's conscious and unconscious needs and possible wants.
The fine line between invasive and resourceful is what needs to be clearly defined when doing this potentially complex form of marketing research. As long as the studies are conducted and used to understand the consumer and with full awareness of all individuals involved, I believe is a positive advancement for the marketing community. Neuromarketing is a clear form of system improvement by refining the process to gather information. It's not changing marketing's purpose, it's more of a tool to facilitate results.
Sources:
Park, Alice. The Brain: Marketing To Your Mind.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1580370,00.html
Miyazaki, Anthony. They're inside my computer. Now they want to get inside my brain. The rise of Neuromarketing.
http://e-marketingforsensiblefolk.blogspot.com/2010/11/theyre-inside-my-computer-now-they-want.html
Dooley, Roger. Neuro-Optimized Products – Good or Evil?
http://www.neurosciencemarketing.com/blog/articles/neuro-optimization.htm
