Journal of Intelligent Marketing Management

Journal of Intelligent Marketing Management

The Role of Art Therapy in Stimulating Customers’ Unconscious in Data-Driven Marketing

Document Type : The scientific research paper

Author
Nahid Zakipour Kinji
Master's Degree, Tehran Center, Graphic Illustration
JABM.3.2.15564.35125656565040
Abstract

While data-driven marketing excels at tracking overt customer behaviour, mounting neuro-consumer evidence suggests that up to ninety-five percent of purchase decisions originate in the unconscious mind. Bridging the gap between numerical analytics and pre-cognitive emotion, this study investigates the efficacy of multisensory art-therapy interventions for activating unconscious processes and translating their emotional signals into real-time personalisation. Employing an exploratory–explanatory sequential mixed-methods design, we first conducted twenty immersive art-therapy sessions in an augmented-reality studio with Generation Z and Y consumers in Tehran and Berlin. Grounded-theory coding of interviews, video logs and participant artworks revealed six dominant themes—such as Artistic Resonance and Algorithmic Trust Cue—that informed the quantitative phase. Subsequently, 300 participants were randomly assigned to three experimental conditions (multisensory art, visual-only art and data control). During brand exposure we recorded 32-channel EEG, electro-dermal activity and eye tracking. Partial least-squares structural-equation modelling confirmed the causal chain Art Therapy → Unconscious Activation → Brand Attachment → Purchase Intention (β = 0.62 to 0.47, p < .001), while algorithmic transparency significantly moderated the final link (β = 0.15, p = .02). Neurophysiological indices supported the behavioural findings: frontal-theta power in the multisensory group was 2.5× higher than control, and first-fixation latency on the brand logo shortened by 42 percent. A multimodal LSTM model combining neural, physiological and clickstream data achieved 87 percent accuracy (AUC-ROC = .93), outperforming behaviour-only baselines by twenty percentage points. Financially, multisensory art produced an emotional return on investment of 4.1 within the first week, compared with 1.2 for a data-only campaign. Collectively, the results demonstrate that art-therapy-augmented marketing not only deepens brand attachment but also generates superior economic value—provided that real-time explainable AI dashboards uphold consumer trust and data-ethics standards. We therefore recommend (i) establishing in-house sensory experience labs, (ii) developing a self-regulatory charter for emotional data, and (iii) instituting a national “Sensory Stimulation Quality Index” to benchmark future campaigns.
Keywords
Art therapy
Customer unconscious
Neuromarketing
Multisensory experience
Algorithmic trust
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Journal of Intelligent Marketing Management
Volume 4, Issue 3 - Serial Number 21
Autumn 2023
Pages 303-321

  • Receive Date 13 May 2023
  • Revise Date 01 October 2023
  • Accept Date 01 October 2023