“Two Rivers” brain map for social media marketing: Reward and information value drivers of SNS consumer engagement

Like the Tigris-Euphrates rivers in the Middle East, Yellow-Yangtze rivers in China, and Mississippi-Colorado rivers in the United States, our brain has two neural pathways (or rivers) where we perceive two distinct values in marketing exchange processes. We identify two neural pathways of reward and information value (RIV) perceptions in the consumer brain leading to engagement, recommendation, and sharing (ERS) behavior in social media marketing. Using fMRI, we show that the first river in the brain (i.e., reward value area of the nucleus accumbens) is activated when consumers are shown visually aesthetic and appealing (versus unappealing) objects in social media advertisements. The second river in the brain (i.e., information value area of the prefrontal cortex) is activated when consumers are shown new (versus outdated) products in social media advertisements. This paper is the first attempt in marketing to provide an integrative brain map for customer value perception in SNS marketing. The conceptual model presented in this paper can be traced back to the traditional consumer attitude change theory as dual processing models of persuasion, yet it can explain the underlying mechanisms of consumer value in the social media context. Using this two rivers brain map, marketers can better identify how their offerings can satisfy the diverse and unique needs of consumers based on RIV.