partners and cocreators. It's a brave new world where the

consumer is king, and marketers have to fight for every

moment they give us.

These so-called conversations are, undoubtedly, a

positive development in the way we interact with our

consumers and our community, and it is technology we

have to thank for them. But there is another technology

coming over the horizon that doesn’t remotely rely on

speaking. Enter the world of neuro-marketing. If, like

me, you have ever puzzled over why consumers do the

things they do and are, at times, so unpredictable, then

this is the technology for you.

Why trouble yourself with questioning and listening

to people post-rationalize when we are able to hook

them up to relatively unobtrusive machines, read the

electrical patterns in their brain and infer a decision-

making process that they themselves are not even aware

of? I write this with my tongue perhaps not fully in my

cheek. Make no mistake, this is not a fantasy technology.

It is being used here and now in Japan to help the most

innovative marketers hone their product offering and

advertising appeals.