Forget The Focus Group, Bring On The MRI

In the old days, if you wanted to know whether or not an ad worked, you'd have to put together a focus group. That meant finding participants, drafting questionnaires, and plenty of analyzing data.

BORRRRRRING

Thankfully, there's a better way. Marketers have begun using EEG and MRI machines to track whether or not their advertising is exciting the right brain waves in potential consumers' minds. A decrease in alpha waves accompanied by an increase in beta and theta waves means your commercial works.

While this may sound like something out of a freaky Orwellian dystopia, Joseph Ciorciari, of the Swinburne University Technology says, "In terms of ethical marketing, if it's used as a tool to better understand the consumer's wants and needs then I don't see any problem with it." So stick that in your pipe and smoke it, hippies!!

In all seriousness, however, it is important that matters like this be highly scruitinized. Will the implementation of these procedures become commonplace? How well do these tests predict a campaign's success? Can the results justify the costs of using such technologically advanced equipment? These are all questions we should be asking ourselves before moving forward in this highly intriguing area of research.