Ethics, neuromarketing and marketing research with children

This article describes how a new budding method opens up the avenue for debate to generate ideas and thoughts around its ethical grounding, especially with its application on children. This purpose should be addressed to ensure a pluralistic ethical approach to dealing with children as respondents in research. Relevant literature and theoretical findings on ethics, marketing research, neuromarketing and neuroethics as well as the most common and applied ethical policies are reviewed systematically and presented. Interspersed with this method is a comprehensive evaluation of current debates and cases on ethics and children. The use of research ethics regulatory and policy mechanisms and its harmonisation at different levels with other neuroethics codes could reduce unethical practices. Accordingly, the emphasis on children's protection (in terms of cognitive manipulations) with neuromarketing research should be paramount. The knowledge gained through this research should ideally facilitate the process of advancing ethical concerns to promote statutory policy in the light of neuromarketing techniques.