Marketing executives have spent decades perfecting ways to measure advertising effectiveness. Brand recall studies, aided awareness surveys, and post-campaign research all ask variations of the same question: Do consumers remember seeing your ad? But neuromarketing research suggests that CMOs may be measuring the wrong thing.
A study conducted by consumer neuroscience firm Neurons reveals a surprising disconnect: the ads that most powerfully influence purchase behavior are often the ones consumers have no conscious memory of seeing. For an industry spending over $700 billion annually on advertising, this finding challenges conventional wisdom and offers a major caution on how we evaluate campaign success.
The Study That Paints a Surprising Picture
Thomas Ramsoy, CEO of Neurons, neuroscience researcher, and author of How To Make People Buy, recently shared details of a retail study that demonstrates this phenomenon. His team recruited 25 DIY consumers who were actually planning to paint their homes, then randomly assigned them to three groups before sending them into a store with EEG headsets to measure brain activity.
The control group saw a series of ads that didn’t include Valspar paint. The other two groups saw either a 15-second or 30-second Valspar commercial embedded in the same ad sequence. Ramsoy’s team then tracked what happened when these consumers entered the paint aisle.
The behavioral differences were dramatic. “The Valspar groups spent much more time exploring the Valspar shelves compared to the competitor brands,” Ramsoy explains. “They explored the products and the coloring much more. They had stronger emotional response, so a stronger kind of approach behavior. They were less price sensitive, so they chose typically a little bit more expensive options.”
The purchase data told an even more compelling story. While approximately 70% of the control group bought Valspar, “the Valspar groups actually bought something like 85 to 95 percent,” Ramsoy notes. The 30-second ad proved even more effective than the 15-second version.
When “I Don’t Remember” Means “It Worked”
Here’s where the research becomes truly counterintuitive. During checkout, Ramsoy’s team conducted debriefing interviews with participants. They asked consumers why they chose Valspar and whether they remembered seeing any Valspar advertising.
“Most people said, no, they hadn’t” seen a Valspar ad, Ramsoy reveals. “And then we even showed them the ad and people then typically recognized the ad, but they still said, no, it didn’t affect my choice.”
Instead, consumers constructed elaborate alternative explanations for their purchases. “People came with all different kinds of stories that the color remind me of my grandma’s home or whatever it was,” according to Ramsoy. The brain activity data and purchase behavior proved the ads had influenced decisions, yet consumers genuinely believed their choices were entirely independent.
As Ramsoy summarizes: “We have this complete disconnect, so to speak, in terms of what people choose, and we see that it actually has an impact on their choice. But subjectively and consciously, we tend to kind of ignore that and say, hey, it’s my choice still.”
Why Preconscious Processing Matters More Than Memory
This phenomenon reflects a fundamental reality about human decision-making that behavioral economists have documented for decades: most of our choices happen before conscious awareness kicks in. The brain processes advertising stimuli, forms emotional associations, and influences future behavior without that information ever reaching conscious memory systems.
Ramsoy uses an everyday analogy to explain this concept: “Walking from point A to point B, you don’t have to think about every single step you do. It’s an autopilot thing.” The same principle applies to brand preferences and purchase decisions. “The brain is such an energy hog,” he notes, consuming 20-25% of the body’s energy despite representing only 2% of body mass. “Whatever the brain can do to reduce consumption of energy, it will do. And one way you can do that is to turn things into autopilot behaviors.”
The research suggests that effective advertising creates these autopilot associations. Exposure to Valspar’s ads didn’t create a memorable “event” that consumers could later recall. Instead, it shaped the neural pathways that guided attention, emotional response, and ultimately choice in the paint aisle, all while remaining invisible to conscious awareness.
Stop Asking Customers What Influenced Them
For CMOs, this research shows that traditional methods of evaluating advertising effectiveness may be significantly underestimating impact. If consumers don’t remember seeing effective ads, then brand recall studies will consistently undervalue campaigns that work primarily through pre-conscious influence.
Survey-based research asking consumers which ads they remember, which brands come to mind, or what influenced their purchase decision will miss the very mechanism by which many ads succeed. The Valspar study participants weren’t lying when they said the ad didn’t influence them. They genuinely believed it, even as the neuromarketing and sales data proved otherwise.
This explains why so many marketers struggle to connect advertising exposure to sales lift using survey methodologies. The most powerful advertising effects may be happening in ways that never reach conscious awareness.
What Marketers Should Do Differently
First, reconsider over-reliance on recall-based metrics. Brand awareness and ad recall studies still have value for understanding conscious brand associations, but they shouldn’t be the primary measures of campaign effectiveness. As Ramsoy’s research demonstrates, ads can be effective while producing minimal recall.
Second, invest in behavioral measurement over self-reported data. Rather than asking consumers what they remember or what influenced them, track actual behavior: attention patterns, emotional engagement, time spent with brand, and ultimately purchase decisions. These behavioral signals reveal the pre-conscious influence that surveys miss.
Third, recognize that effectiveness and memorability aren’t the same thing. The advertising industry has long assumed that memorable ads are effective ads. The Valspar research suggests the relationship may be more complex. Some ads may need to be consciously remembered to work, as for considered purchases requiring deliberate evaluation. Others may work best by shaping pre-conscious associations without demanding conscious attention.
Fourth, consider neuroscience-based testing before relying solely on focus groups and surveys. While consumer neuroscience tools were once prohibitively expensive, AI-driven platforms are making these insights increasingly accessible. Even basic eye-tracking and emotional response measurement can reveal whether ads are engaging the pre-conscious systems that drive behavior. Inexpensive and scalable implicit testing can measure emotions and traits associated with a brand.
The Broader Implications
This research connects to a larger trend in understanding consumer behavior: the recognition that conscious thought plays a smaller role in decision-making than we once believed. From Daniel Kahneman’s “System 1” thinking to the entire field of behavioral economics, decades of research point to the same conclusion: most choices happen automatically, with conscious reasoning arriving later to justify decisions already made.
For marketing leaders, this means the conversation about advertising effectiveness needs to evolve beyond “Did they remember it?” to “Did it shape the unconscious behaviors that drive choice?” Those are fundamentally different questions requiring fundamentally different measurement approaches.
The paint aisle study offers a powerful reminder: in the competition for consumer attention and preference, the most effective campaigns may be the ones working so smoothly that consumers never realize they’ve been influenced at all.