Neuromarketing helps study consumer behavior and explain it from a scientific point of view, identify audience emotions and find ways to build communication more effectively. Neurotrend is the only laboratory whose equipment was created from scratch in collaboration with scientists such as psychophysiologist and Doctor of Biological Sciences Alexander Kaplan. A Sostav correspondent found out how measurements are taken and what they show.

What is neuromarketing

Neuromarketing is a method of studying consumer behavior, their emotional and behavioral reactions to improve the effectiveness of advertising campaigns.

Respondents' reactions are measured using complex scientific equipment that reads electrical signals from the brain, determines the state of the autonomic nervous system, and records eye movements.

The concept of neuromarketing was developed by scientists at Harvard University in 1990, and the concept itself appeared in 2002. Since then, the method has been used by large corporations, such as Coca-Cola.

Let's test the "Neurobarometer"

"Neurotrend" is a Russian research company in the field of neuromarketing, whose equipment was created from scratch. It is called "Neurobarometer". It includes not only hardware, but also software. A team of scientists created a methodology for various indicators that became marketing indicators. Among them: attention, involvement, strength of emotional reaction, interest and others.

In addition to marketers, economists and programmers, the team of developers included many leading scientists involved in neuroscience, biologists and physiologists. Among them, for example, Doctor of Biological Sciences, physiologist, leading researcher of the Department of Human and Animal Physiology of the Biological Faculty of Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov Vyacheslav Dubynin.

"Neurotrend" invited me to take measurements - this is what research in the field of neuromarketing is called. Several respondents and I will watch more than a dozen food commercials from different years and different brands.

Preparation

A friendly girl at the reception asks me to fill out a questionnaire. In addition to my full name, age, and dominant hand, I need to indicate my dominant eye. Eye? Frankly speaking, I don’t see very well, and I wear glasses. Watching the videos without glasses was not part of my plans.

But the assistants calm me down and ask me to look through a hole in the clipboard at a piece of paper with a target attached to the wall. My right eye sees it, but for the left eye it magically disappears, and I stare in amazement at the empty wall.

“Where is it?..” I ask, confused.

“That’s normal,” they answer me.

Some miracles right from the doorway.

“Right leading,” the assistants say to each other.

In addition to me, five more people are participating in the study; a total of 30 respondents will have their brains “scanned.” They sit modestly, looking around warily in a cool, beautiful corridor.

A few minutes later, we are let into the research room. Inside there are five soft, comfortable chairs. Opposite them there are stands similar to projectors, turned “facing” the seated people.

This is one of the main devices for assessing the perception of content - an eye tracker. After all, most of the information comes to the brain through the visual channel. With the help of an eye tracker, researchers record how long and what area of the frame the respondent looks at.

The eye tracker tracks how often the respondent interacted with the part of the frame that is important for the advertiser. For example, you can determine that the viewer does not see the brand name in the video, but is captivated by the movements of the main character.

How the eye tracker works

There is also a table in the room on which there are soft helmets with sensors, a bracelet, and an ear clip.

A young intern puts a helmet on me - an electroencephalograph (EEG). She wets a cotton swab with water to attach the sensors. She touches it very carefully.

Alesya is sitting next to her, she happily took on the role of a guide in this scientific and marketing world.

“Usually such things are gel-based. But it’s inconvenient — they stain your hair and clothes. That’s why we created devices that are attached to the skin with water,” Alesya explains. The intern tightens the helmet — not as tightly as she would like — the glasses get in the way. Again. Laser correction is still necessary.

Using EEG, one can determine a metric called “memorability,” which shows the level of cognitive load when watching videos. The sensors help read changes in electromagnetic oscillations — rhythms. In order for the data to be accurate during the experiment, it is necessary to create conditions as close to real as possible.

In a helmet with sensors, I feel like either a movie hero or a guinea pig.

A bio-bracelet is attached to the arm, which records changes in the functioning of the autonomic nervous system, since it is strongly influenced by the emotional state.

The device shows the diameter of the lumen of the blood vessels. When stressed, the vessels narrow, the pulse rate changes. The bracelet also measures the thermal conductivity of the skin, this indicator also helps to find out about nervous tension. When excited, a person sweats, and the electrolytes contained in sweat increase thermal conductivity.

The bio-bracelet helps to determine two important marketing indicators: involvement and the strength of the emotional reaction.

However, measuring emotions is a delicate matter. If a person watches an advertisement and imagines how his apartment catches fire from an iron that was not turned off, then, of course, the indicators will not be reliable. This is why data from one respondent is not enough, and it is necessary to record the reaction of several dozen people.

We watch

I and four other participants, hung with sensors, are asked to sit in those same chairs and put away their phones. The lights go out. The presenter from somewhere behind asks to follow the dots on the screen only with your eyes, without moving your head and body.

A dot flickers on the screen, jumping from one corner to another, turning from dark to red.

“Calibration is set for everyone except Igor and Nikita. Once again,” says the invisible girl. I follow the dots again.

As they explain to me later, calibration is the adjustment of the eye tracker algorithm to the shape of a specific person’s eyeball.

Finally, bright frames appear on the screen and cheerful music plays — a selection of fourteen videos started with a yogurt commercial. Next, celebrities are visible on the screen: Milokhin and Ivleeva are gobbling up burgers, and, God forgive me, the ubiquitous Petrov. Zhukov, maddened by chicken legs, dances next. Fortunately, these actions take place in three different plots.

Then comes a series of social videos. Despite the bright colors in the frames, they are so gray that after the end of the measurement I will completely forget what their message was.

Here on the screen they show a disgusting soft bear and cars. For some reason I don't like them.

One of the videos has an unusual beginning. The viewer sees a close-up of the faces of incredibly surprised children. It turns out that the son and daughter were amazed by the footage of the mating season of elephants. The children's astonished faces reminded me of how my mother took away the book about animals that she had given me for my birthday, where there were horses, giraffes, and wolves.

It still hurts.

While I am immersed in memories, the advertising mother wants to change the channel, pokes the remote control several times, it falls, but a pink hare deftly catches it.

Several more videos fly by. The screen goes dark.

Afterwards, you need to thoughtfully evaluate what you have watched, but some of the stories have fallen out of your memory.

The selection consisted of advertisements for seven foreign brands and seven import-substituting ones. Today, the commercials for Aktibio and Activia, McDonalds and Vkusno — i tochka, Duracell and Opticel, KFC and Roctics, and others were shown.

We will see the results of this measurement at the end of July — in the new issue of Neurovisor, but for now you can read the previous one. Of course, when you finish reading this text.

Transcript

When the respondents leave the room, we go drink coffee and wait for the results. They will be deciphered by Maria Viktorovna Koroleva, a candidate of medical and biological sciences, psychologist, and profiler.

In studies, data from the entire group is usually taken into account, and data from one person is not downloaded, but an exception is made for me.

A heat map appears on the screen. The areas that the respondents were looking at are marked with green spots.

Below is a graph with three curves. Blue is attention, red is a sign of emotional reaction, black is involvement. When the red curve goes up, it indicates positive emotions, and also the higher it is, the stronger the attention.

We decide to analyze that same video about batteries and compare my reaction with the reactions of other respondents.

The frame shows mating elephants on TV.

“Both emotional reaction and involvement are growing, which indicates surprise. See?” — Maria points to the curves. “Uh-huh,” I nod, remembering only the meaning of the red one.

The frames run on, heat spots dance, the curves jump in different directions, and Maria calmly continues to decipher the data received.

“When it becomes clear that the children are looking at the elephants, all the curves go down, which indicates general tension. In the next frame, the parents exchange glances, and a close-up of the child’s face is shown. Here the viewer begins to laugh, he anticipates that something cool is about to happen. "There is an increase in emotional reaction, a decrease in involvement, which is typical for the perception of humor," she says.

I listen with delight. How can you understand what a person is feeling from these crooked lines and green spots? But you can!

Meanwhile, the mother's movements when she pokes at the remote control amuse the respondents.

"These identical quick actions, like Charlie Chaplin, make us laugh," Maria emphasizes. "The next shot, where the hare caught the remote control, is done competently, because the mascot completely captures attention: there is nothing else to look at against the blurred background."

The next frame shows batteries with the brand name. Here the viewer feels some irritation: he was having fun, but now he is no longer entertained.

“Here you can see the growth of valence and the fall in involvement. Everyone was interested in how children reacted to elephants, how mom poked her finger at the remote control, but it all came down to some batteries,” Maria summarizes.

The specialist explains that Duracell, in a sense, was ahead of its time.

Previously, commercials were emotionally built on the “adrenaline” scheme: pain, search for a solution, finding a solution, resolving the situation and advertising a savior product.

Modern commercials are built on cognitive dissonance: when they show something unusual. They no longer scare anyone, but simply surprise with something. These are dopamine commercials, Maria notes.

For some reason I remember the advertisement for Zlato oil with the evil mother-in-law, and when I hear the word “dopamine,” I see Alabai dogs on an airplane.

In general, the advertisement managed to interest the respondents and evoke a wide range of emotions. As for me…

“As for you, Yulia, your data is different,” this wonderful woman smiles, “this is probably due to your professional deformation.”

She shows me the screen, and on the graph, instead of curves, I see absolutely straight lines that only jump slightly at the very beginning.

In the frame where you can see the child’s face stretched out in surprise, the equipment recorded a drop in my emotional reaction. According to Maria, the moment with the children is the lowest point of the curve, which indicates that the reaction is transferred to oneself.

Spot on! We remember the book, right?

“Your heart sank. An interesting phenomenon, when the black curve — involvement — and the red curve — valence — decrease. This is a freezing reaction. This reaction often happens when such emotional faces are shown. Then you have a practically straight line. As soon as the children and elephants are over, everything else is clear, and here, judging by the schedule, you just look with an appraising glance,” Maria summed up.

It’s sad, but the videos really didn’t evoke any strong emotions in me, I wanted more creativity, sharp turns and unexpected endings. Alabaev, after all. In a word, that same fast dopamine.

On the way to the editorial office, I think about how even the most standard commercial brings strong experiences to the viewer, and therefore forms his habits and changes his perception. Social networks also gradually leave their mark on us. And soon, probably, artificial intelligence will be added to this list. But this is already a topic for a separate article.

Source: https://www.sostav.ru/publication/nejroroliki-kak-nauka-pomogaet-reklame-68613.html