What Neuroscience Teaches us about Marketing Communications September 3rd 2015

Our Brains and Marketing Communication Implications for Marketeers

3

Validation Explanation

Importance of our key metrics in Link

Branding

Enjoyment

Involvement

Persuasion

Association

Branding

Enjoyment

Involvement

Persuasion

Association

Three quarters of these

ads will gain share

Half of these

ads will lose share

Today

5

1.Attention

2.Emotions

3.Retrieval

4.Decisions

The dress that broke the internet

2% Bodyweight

20% Oxygen

25% Glucose

Our brains are greedy

Base: 898 ads

Messages disappear

Message 1

Message 3

Message 2

1 message

%

3 message

%

2 message

%

Communication of key messages from ads with…

42 20 15

8

19 7

Attention is selective

Share of Time Share of Attention

Carbon ball

dropped

into glass

Web pages are partially viewed

Print ads are selectively viewed as well

Attention

12

Our brains…..

1. Limit and focus our attention

2. Work on the principle of least mental effort

3. Focus on the things of most relevance to us

13

1.Attention

2.Emotions

3.Retrieval

4.Decisions

Low engagement Including casual observation,

day to day events

High engagement Including deliberation,

‘important’ events

Watching TV ads

Learning by repetition

Wedding or car crash

Watching and sharing a viral ad

Memory reflects engagement

HIGH

MEMORABILITY

LOW

MEMORABILITY

Automatic

Who is the odd one out?

Feeding

Fleeing

Fighting and....

Fornicating!

The story really

moved me

Anger

Angst

Annoyance

Anxiety

Apathy

Arousal

Awe

Boldness

Boredom

Contempt

Contentment

Curiosity

Depression

Desire

Despair

Disappointment

Disgust

Dread

Ecstasy

Embarrassment

Envy

Euphoria

Excitement

Fear

Fearlessness

Frustration

Gratitude

Grief

Guilt

Happiness

Hatred

Hope

Horror

Hostility

Hysteria

Indifference

Interest

Jealousy

Joy

Loathing

Loneliness

Love

Lust

Misery

Panic

Passion

Pity

Pleasure

Pride

Rage

Regret

Remorse

Sadness

Satisfaction

Shame

Shock

Shyness

Sorrow

Suffering

Surprise

Terror

Wonder

Worry

Feelings

Emotions are not irrational, they help us make sensible decisions

I view emotion as delivering

cognitive information

You remember things which are…

Emotional

Relevant

Different

Recent

Frequent

CREATIVE

MEDIA

Emotions

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4. Our attention is powerfully directed by our

emotions

5. The things that go into our memories have

consistent characteristics

26

1.Attention

2.Emotions

3.Retrieval

4.Decisions

Semantic

Memories

Episodic

Memories

We store processed and unprocessed stuff

Music starts and grass and plants spring up

from the surface of the 'water' before turning into a small island

getting bigger and bigger ... you can see both below and

above the surface and begin to see trees and things growing

on a landmass around the island... the island has one tree with

a tire swing and then a giant deer with trees for antlers

appears and dives into the water turning into a turtle that

surfaces in front of an even bigger green elephant, the turtle

seemed to be the Island with the single tree and then the

green elephant blows what seem to be blue butterflies out of

it's trunk as the music said something about butterflies and

then the whole thing zooms out to see a juice bottle where the

land mass becomes the lid of the bottle....

Advertising does

not effect me

Brands are stored as representations

EXPERIENCE

KNOWLEDGE

EMOTION

Cool

Awesome

Swedish Cheap

Creative

Efficient

Functional

32

CONSCIOUS PRIMED SUBCONSCIOUS

Cats and Dogs

You are going to see a series of photographs of cats and

dogs – but they will appear and disappear very quickly

As fast as you can, after each one, shout out either

Cat! or Dog!

If you see something that you cannot identify as

either a cat or a dog shout out Neither!

So how do people recognize

your brand?

In an ad?

In the store?

What cues are important?

Retrieval

53

6. We store processed and unprocessed stuff

7. We store memories in associated networks

8. Some things come to mind much more easily

than others

9. The stimulus dictates what gets recalled

54

1.Attention

2.Emotions

3.Retrieval

4.Decisions

55

“ Most of what you think and do

originates in your System 1, but

System 2 takes over when

things get difficult and it

normally has the last word”

– Easy

– Automatic

– Fast

– Effortful

– Logical

– Slow

SYSTEM 2 SYSTEM 1

The Jam Experiment

56

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Stop Buy

24 Jams

6 Jams

%

57

Easy for System 1

to choose Easy for System 2

to justify

Strong brands have strong ‘instant meaning’

The Observations

1. Our “thinking” capacity is very limited

2. Our brains work on the principle of least mental effort

3. This makes it tough to get noticed

4. Our attention is powerfully directed by our emotions

5. The things that go into our memories have consistent

characteristics

6. We store processed and unprocessed stuff

7. We store memories in associated networks

8. Some things come to mind much more easily than others

9. The stimulus dictates what gets recalled

10. We make decisions using as little effort as possible

The Implications for Marketing

Communication has to engage to be noticed and remembered.

Our brains hate hard work – make it easy to remember and retrieve

Make it relevant

Make the network of associations about your brand rich (but simple)

Know what instant meaning of the brand you are trying to evoke

Understand how your brand is recognized and make the visual and

conceptual links between ad and brand as clear as possible

Implications for Communications Research Practical Solutions

#MBNeuroscience

Our Solutions within the Creative Development Process

61

MESSAGE IDEA EXECUTION

LINKNOW

Our Combined Qualitative And Quantitative Approach To Creative Development Research

Implications for Creative Development Research

62

A great ad pre-test needs to assess whether the ad will be noticed

• People can’t tell you this because they are not consciously deciding what they notice

• A Pre-Test must assess the characteristics of noticeability.

• How relevant is the ad to the individual?

• Does it engage their emotions?

• Is it different?

A great pre-test will tell you what associations will get into peoples memories

• Only the most salient associations will come to mind at the moment that matters – the

purchase decision

A great pre-test will tell you whether these memories are accessible in connection with the

brand

• The stimulus for purchase is the brand – either its physical presence or summoning it up in

the mind. The associations that are going to make most difference are the ones which come

up easily when the brand is in the mind

At the Heart of our Quantitative Creative Development Research

is our Link Pre-test research solution

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ENGAGEMENT BRAND

ASSOCIATIONS

MOTIVATION

POWERFUL RESOURCE

Normative database of over 100,000

campaigns

POWERFUL PROFILING

Rich, insightful performance

assessment

POWERFUL IMPACT

Proven track record in optimising ads

Validated against future sales growth

+50% ad efficiency

our World-Class Predictive Tool to Optimise Return on Investment

Our Recent Developments In Link Have Been 3 Dimensional

64

Faster Options A range of ‘levels’ of solutions

Across Channels Developments in Digital,

Outdoor, etc

Smarter Analysis Enhanced neuroscience

techniques & metrics

Harnessing the power of Neuroscience in our Creative Development Research

65

Alongside our established explicit Link metrics, we also use:

Integrated into our core Link Research Solution

Neuroscience

Facial Coding

Implicit Measurements

Intuitive Association

Our Neuroscience Metrics: Why Use Facial Coding?

66

Expression aggregation and

analysis

When people feel something they show it in their faces, even if they don’t realise it

Facial coding does three powerful things:

1) Identifies the emotional foundation behind an idea

2) Uncovers the observed reality of consumer reaction (not just what they say)

3) Efficiently optimises an ad prior to release

Facial Coding is an effective way to access a Pre-conscious Emotional Response

67

What facial coding adds?

Alongside established Link metrics, facial coding will highlight the practical elements of the execution

which relate to specific insights, such as level understanding, key message takeout, engagement and

impact on persuasion, etc

NEUTRAL

SADNESS ANGER

SURPRISE FEAR DISGUST

HAPPINESS

Delivered via interactive dashboard -

now with added enhancements, additional summary metrics & norms

How facial coding works?

Try it out yourself!

What is Intuitive Association?

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Both the brand and ideas activated by an ad need to be evoked with minimal effort (i.e. through

system 1) in order to allow associations to build up in the mind between the brand and these concepts

… a successful ad must deliver ‘instant meaning’ about the brand!

“Does the ad trigger intended ideas without significant thought by the viewer?”

Sexy

Comforting

Stylish

Reassuring

Powerful

• It allow us to infer how easily, and therefore how intuitively, we associate different concepts with ads

• It lets us compare these strengths of associations across different attributes and ads or brands

How does the task work, and what do we get from it?

69

• Viewers answer yes or no as to whether they associate each word with the ad shown, and we measure not

just what they say but also how quickly they say it.

• The quicker they are able to respond, the less effort they have had to put in to answer that question, and the

more intuitive (and therefore more likely to be activated in real life) the association will be.

These are the ideas most easily communicated by the ad

These ideas are not reinforced by the ad

We report how many people said yes to each word, and how many of those said yes quickly

These are the ideas that people need to think about more in order to ‘get’ them (but they may not always do that!)

These ideas are coming through more intuitively than their overall strength would suggest, so there may be the potential for them to be brought to the fore more

Case study: understanding the intuitive associations of these two ads helped to show which was more likely to be successful in the real world

70

Explicit associations – % overall endorsement

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100PLEASURE

ENJOYMENT

FUN

TOGETHER

INSPIRING

ENHANCEEMOTIONAL

PHYSICAL

CLOSENESS

COMFORT

USUAL

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45PLEASURE

ENJOYMENT

FUN

TOGETHER

INSPIRING

ENHANCEEMOTIONAL

PHYSICAL

CLOSENESS

COMFORT

USUAL

Implicit associations – % intuitive strengths

Two creative ideas were developed to communicate an FMCG brand’s message. Explicit take-out from the two ads was very similar, but the IA task highlighted that while both ads communicated on strategy, one execution expressed the ideas in a much more easily accessible

Our recent developments in Link have been 3 dimensional

71

Faster Options A range of ‘levels’ of solutions

Across Channels Developments in Digital,

Outdoor, etc

Smarter Analysis Enhanced neuroscience

techniques, metrics

Our solutions can be applied across all channels

72

CAMPAIGNS

TV

PRINT

OUTDOOR

DIGITAL

RADIO

Our recent developments in Link have been 3 dimensional

73

Faster Options A range of ‘levels’ of solutions

Across Channels Developments in Digital,

Outdoor, etc

Smarter Analysis Enhanced neuroscience

techniques, metrics

Our different Link offering, what is Relevant to You?

74

When there’s a need to know not only how an ad will perform in market, but how the creative can be optimised to maximise ROI • Full evaluation • Full diagnostics • Integrates neuroscience • Full management presentation • Optimisation recommendations

When there's a need to know how an ad will perform in market and indications of what is driving performance • Fast • Evaluative • Identifies strengths and

weaknesses

When indications of ad performance are enough • Fast • Evaluative

Link LinkExpress LinkNow

Executional Optimisation Executional Evaluation Executional Check

DURATION

Our new Link Solutions are faster…and more economical

75

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Toplines within 48 hours

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25 hours

Link with facial coding (150 sample x 20 mins)

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INVESTMENT SOLUTION

76

Research needs to be tailored

depending on your specific

requirements;

it’s important to use the right

solutions to maximize potential.

CHOOSING THE RIGHT SOLUTION

IT NEEDS TO BE RELEVANT

What Neuroscience Teaches us about Marketing Communications Q & A