Psycho-physiological measurements
We measure people’s emotions to understand and improve the effectiveness of communication strategies and brand content creation.
Having plotted the route on the roadmap developed with people, we investigate satisfaction directly from the minds and hearts of people; we measure the strength of their associations and improve the tools that companies use to increase their involvement.
When people are exposed to brand communications, it is their emotions that largely govern their interest and purchase decisions: knowing what stimulates emotional responses allows us to optimise people’s experience.
The huge technological advances in the field of neuroscience in recent years allow us to obtain real-time information on brain and nervous system activity.
In our mixed approach, these techniques and neurophysiological analysis tools such as eye tracking, skin conductance and electroencephalography (techniques, methodologies and tools often associated with neuromarketing) complement and supplement the outcomes of techniques such as interviews or analysis methods from the traditional human sciences. Or, in other words, in-depth interviews and a knowledge of behavioural economics, anthropology, cognitive psychology and social psychology imbue the data and biometric findings with meaning, thereby adding value to our listening to people.
The blending of these disciplines and their application in the spaces and moments of contact between people and brands allow us to paint a much more complete picture. Thereby we can analyse the unconscious processes that unfold in people’s minds and that influence purchasing decisions or emotional engagement with a brand, delving into the unconscious motives that drive everyday decisions.
We believe this because neuroscience research has amply demonstrated that unconscious responses have an impact on decision-making and that traditional investigation methods (such as focus groups and surveys) are sometimes inaccurate, since consumers cannot articulate the unconscious mechanisms that drive them to buy certain products or choose certain services.
In effect, the consumer’s rational response to surveys or questionnaires is often influenced by several factors that they may or may not be aware of. We have to start from the premise that individuals do not always say what they think: shame, prejudice or fear of being judged by others may affect the answers they give in questionnaires and focus groups. On the one hand, people often try to give the “right” answer because, being sociable by nature, they are oriented to seek the approval of others, and this factor tends to influence their responses and behaviour. On the other hand, however, what we believe is not always true to reality, so respondents’ answers often do not coincide with the results obtained through these new investigation techniques.
That is why today we test the value associations of a brand and their strength (using the Implicit Association Test – IAT); we study nervous system activity to understand how people get excited, to identify what excites them, what engages them and what succeeds in attracting their attention.
We are now able to measure people’s psycho-physiological responses to communication and creativity in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the strategy.
Whether it is a television or radio advert, a video clip or a print advert, we can establish to what extent people are actually involved or indifferent. We can help our partners identify the most effective way of getting their message across.
We can also establish people’s engagement in key sales situations: at a branch, during a product tasting or while visiting a store.
These activities could be identified as neuromarketing, but for the above reasons we prefer to think in terms of psycho-physiology and neuroscience applied to the study of consumers and the analysis of the experience of users, whom we call people.
Depending on the scope of the analysis, our approach combines the use of quantitative and qualitative methods. These methods in turn relate to the subjective or the objective sphere.
An approach of this kind is useful in that it ensures not only richer quality information but also a more solid and consistent representation of the entity being examined. Tests with psycho-physiological measurements explore and analyse the emotions of people and can be applied in many different contexts:
– In a laboratory or controlled environment: video analysis, ADV campaigns, audio, visual components, standardised web streams, packaging.
– In a physical environment: flagship stores or large-scale retail shops, environments with a high informational complexity (e.g. airports, railway stations), interactive totems, automatic ticket machines. In any physical environments combined biometric measurements can be performed (EEG, eye tracking, GSR, etc.) in order to learn about people’s experience and direct investments accordingly.
Remotely : we can use IATs – implicit association tests – to measure the strength of associative links between memorised concepts and a brand with its touchpoints (logo, packaging, ADV campaigns, audio and visual components).
For over 10 years we have helped our partners understand which products are the most effective, efficient and satisfactory by measuring emotions in order to enhance experience.