Advertising / Super Bowl XLVIII

The First Integrated Neuroscience Study Of Advertising:
Using Multiple Neuroscience Measures To Determine Emotional Reactions To Super Bowl Ads

Challenge

For the 2014 annual Super Bowl advertising study, our company collaborated with multiple partners to advance understanding of non-conscious drivers of advertising. The ads were holistically measured utilizing 8 of the 10 neuroscience technologies (see page 3). This year’s Super Bowl provided the opportunity to examine the relationships between different neuroscience measures.

Solution

The study began during the Super Bowl with our company biometrically monitoring 80 participants live, using state-of-the-art technology to capture fluctuations in heart rate, skin conductance, and breathing patterns in the company’s Media Lab and facilities in Boston and the Time Warner Medialab in New York. As part of the study, participants were also recorded on video, and their emotional responses from their facial expressions were coded using Emotient’s automated emotion recognition software.

We then forwarded blind results, including top-and bottom-performing ads based on the biometric results, to Temple University’s Center for Neural Decision Making. The Temple team used fMRI to monitor the brain activity of 26 participants as they watched more than 20 of the game’s ads.

Results

The findings showed that ads that took audiences on an emotional journey — ads from brands like Cheerios, Chevrolet, Budweiser and Hyundai – delivered the highest moments of engagement. More importantly, this unique study showed convergence among different findings:

• Ads that performed well on biometrics also elicited increased brain activity (relative to ads that performed poorly) in key areas of interest for marketers. These included brain regions associated with emotional relevance (amygdala), memory formation (hippocampus) and executive function (lateral prefrontal cortex).
• Among top performers, ads like those from Cheerios and Volkswagen elicited emotional responses while activating two additional regions of the brain commonly associated with valuation and reward – the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and ventral striatum.
• These areas are consistent with prior work conducted by Temple University’s Center for Neural Decision Making in the area of advertising effectiveness research.