Background information
Following a common understanding that emotional engagement is becoming a more important metric to advertisers, South African sales house – Kagiso Media created NextGen Neuro. Neuro science offers the opportunity to unpack real emotional engagement and response to various stimulus that may exist. We had the honour of learning all about this product and study from Research and Analytics Manager at Kagiso Media – Melissa McNally, at this year’s Market Intelligence Meeting in Madrid.
Looking at how consumers want to have a voice when it comes to their brands, Kagiso Media was inspired to construct a listener led approach to insights, where co-creation with audiences is promoted to create a deeper connection.
How is this connection created?
There are two ways in which Kagiso Media is doing this. There is the Sound Insights radio community which is an engaged panel of over 5000 listeners. Within the panel, as a client, you can test your concepts and gain a deeper understanding to your campaign elements. And then there is a new and exciting product that the sales house brought to life, NextGen Neuro. This is a neuromarketing tool that allows brands the opportunity to test their audio, to gain a deeper understanding of emotional engagement and purchase propensity.
“Neuromarketing” refers to the measurement of physiological and neural signals to gain insight into customers’ motivations, preferences, and decisions, which can help inform creative advertising, product development, pricing, and other marketing areas. The NextGen Neuro product aims to help advertisers and their agencies to develop richer learning about radio creative effectiveness.
By using the NextGen Neuro testing, purchase intent can be predicted. Brands that appeal to multiple senses are more successful in triggering the brain buy button. For absolute success, a campaign should contain every human sense. Dopamine is highly involved in motivation and reward. In order to activate these mechanisms, we need to grab attention, create relevancy with the customer and consumer, and integrate context. Consistency is key in building the sensory aspects of the brand and you need to appeal to the consumer’s unconscious instinctual behaviour. We often become consciously aware of a decision once we have already decided on it.
Neuro testing
Kagiso Media used neuro testing to copy test some radio ads. It has various applications outside of audio, but their focus in this specific study was audio. It can be used at concept level or with finished copy, and the predictions can be used to tweak the ad before it goes live to reduce ad spending.
A 4 prong approach was used and a total of 5 ads were tested. The ads were supplied by Jacaranda FM with the audience. Within a controlled environment, GSR (Galvanic Skin Response) and Facial Coding technology were used to record skin conductance and facial expressions while being exposed to both relaxing stimuli (tranquil music) and test stimuli (radio advertisement audio clips). With minimal preparation time, skin conductivity and facial expressions were recorded non-invasively using two electrodes placed on the skin, a sensor clipped on the earlobe and camera recording the face. This renders neurophysiological measurements a lot more comfortable for respondents compared to other methods such as FMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) or EEG (Electroencephalogram), where longer preparation and calibration phases and use of conductive gel to the scalp are quite common.
Participants were requested to rate their immediate reactions to the three core dimensions of felt emotions on a 9-point rating scale, which is depicted by static human figure manikins. This immediate response is an important factor that aids in understanding attitudes, preferences, and behaviour. Each emotion consists of three dimensions measured within a three-factor complex of Pleasure, Arousal and Dominance (PAD).
The questions Kagiso Media wanted answered were the following:
- Do perceptions around the gender of the voice used in the advert impact emotional engagement?
- Do jingles create better engagement?
- Do listeners tune out if an advert is in Afrikaans?
- Does a sonic id or sonic branding promote more emotional engagement?
- Does unintentional stereotyping of a group of listeners cause them to tune out?
The 5 ads used were:
- Haval (female voice with emotive content)
- We Buy Cars (English with jingle)
- We Buy Cars (Afrikaans with jingle)
- Volkswagen (male voice general information)
- Toyota (male voice – stereotyped Afrikaans male – with sonic ID)
Results
When comparing the five ads, participants, both male and female and from all age categories, experienced greater emotive intensity while listening to the Haval ad, followed by the Afrikaans We Buy Cars ad. Overall, the English We Buy Cars and Toyota ads resulted in lower levels of emotive arousal and engagement.
Conclusion
Memorable jingles impact purchase intent. If it is a jingle that is already recognizable, it will create more memorability for the listener. Stereotyping cultural groups appears to create dissonance in the mind of the listener. Younger listeners are less emotionally engaged with ads, whilst older respondents are more likely to have more negative associations with an ad. Sonic ids and branding are complex but when correctly executed, create the well-sought engagement.