MEASURING ADVERTISING
EFFECTIVENESS BEYOND
TRADITIONAL METHODS
NEW INSIGHTS FROM NEUROSCIENCE
MARKETING COMMUNICATION
 Marketing communication tools
 Advertising
 Sales promotions
 Events and experiences
 Public relations and publicity
 Brand placement
 Word-of-mouth marketing
 Personal selling
 Interactive marketing
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MARKETING COMMUNICATION
 Advertising objectives
 Create brand awareness
 Create/improve brand image/associations
Create value
for the brand
 Create/improve brand attitude
 Create consumer response
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OUTLINE OF THE LECTURE

Introduction

Key constructs in advertising research
(Venkatraman et al., 2015)

Traditional methods for predicting advertising success
(Venkatraman et al., 2015)

Neurophysiological methods in advertising research
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(Venkatraman et al., 2015)
Eye tracking
Biometrics
Electroencephalography (EEG)
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)
Social Neuromarketing
(Pozharliev et al., 2015)

Wrap up the lecture
4
INTRODUCTION
 Advertising spending
worldwide 2016:
$604.77 billion
 Advertising spending:
 Pre-testing
 In-market analyses
 Advertising:
 Rational: Conscious
 Emotional: Unconscious
5
INTRODUCTION
Emotional advertising
Hyunday car commercial for US market (Super Bowl)
Rational advertising
Hyunday car commercial for India market
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KEY CONSTRUCTS IN ADVERTISING
 Attention: Ability to attract focus to an add

Attention is not given to all visual input. Since our visual environment
is cluttered, attention serves as a processing bottleneck, allowing
only a selected part of sensory input to reach visual awareness.

Bottom-up: rapid, automatic form of selective attention that depends
on the intrinsic properties of the input, such as its colour or intensity.

Top-down: volitional, focal, task-dependent mechanism, that
enhances processing of the selected item.
 Affect: Outward expression of an emotion
 Valence: relative pleasantness/unpleasantness
 Arousal: physiological and subjective intensity
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KEY CONSTRUCTS IN ADVERTISING
 Memory: Mechanism by which past experiences
influence current and future behavior
 Encoding: During past event
 Consolidation: During the intervening period
 Retrieval: During future time
 Desirability: Extent to which people desire the product
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KEY CONSTRUCTS IN ADVERTISING
 Can you recall the 5 differences?
 Can you recall the license plate number of the first car?
 Can you recall the color of the jacket/hat of the man in
the second car?
 How many cars in the picture?
 What was the color of the motorcycle?
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TRADITIONAL METHODS AND MEASURES
 Focus groups and Surveys: Participants responses
 Advantages: Inexpensive, accessible, quick, simple to
analyze
 Focus on:
 Ad execution: Liking, excitability, recall
 Product featured in the ad: Attitudes and purchase intent
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TRADITIONAL METHODS AND MEASURES
 Attention: Liking, excitability, relevancy
 Limitation: Attention precedes awareness
 Affect: Liking, excitability, Self Assessment scale (SAM)
 Limitation: Post-hoc introspection might be distorted by factors
such as higher cognitive processes
(Schifferstein et al., 2011, p. 58)
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TRADITIONAL METHODS AND MEASURES
 Memory: Retrieval aspects to evaluate the quality of the ad
 Recall: partial or no cues
 Recognition: distinguish targets from novel distractors
 Limitation: cannot distinguish between encoding and retrieval
 Desirability: Purchase intent
 Changes in level of desirability for product pre- and post-ad
 Limitation: not capable to predict future intentions or their evolution over
time
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NEWER METHODS IN ADVERTISING RESEARCH
 Eye tracking:
 Captures not only the specific information that is being processed but also the
order and duration of these processes.
 High temporal resolution
 Direct measure of attention:
 Bottom-up: color and luminance affect initial eye movements
 % of valid fixations: index of overall attention/engagement with the ad
 Mean dwell times: depth to which information within an ad is processed
 Direct measure of affect:
 Pupil dilation: physiological response of the sympathetic nervous system which
provides information regarding the degree of arousal
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NEWER METHODS IN ADVERTISING RESEARCH
 Limitations of eye tracking:
 Can not measure memory and desirability
 It does not reveal anything about the higher-level processes of attention
(top-down) and comprehension of the ad content. Fixation doesn’t tell
you why the person is looking at that specific point.
 Findings are rather superficial: For example, the size of the
advertisement has been found to influence participants’ looking times.
 It does not record peripheral vision, which makes up 98% of our visual
field. It is important to recognize that the eye tracking fixations, or hot
spots, do not represent everything participants sees.
 Relatively expensive to buy/rent: $40,000 – $60,000/$1000 - $3000 day
 It can be intrusive
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NEWER METHODS IN ADVERTISING RESEARCH
 Biometrics: physiological or automatic responses to external
stimulus

Types of physiological responses: Heart rate, breathing, skin conductance

Heart rate (pulse): speed of heartbeat
 Measured with electrocardiogram (EKG): Electrical activity of the heart
 Two antagonistic systems control the heart rate:
 Sympathetic nervous system (SNS)/ (fight-or-flight ): Heart rate acceleration (arousal)
 Parasympathetic (rest-and-digest): Heart rate deceleration (calm and relaxed state)
 Increased heart rate deceleration Increased ability to focus  Attention
 Increased heart rate acceleration  Increased Arousal
 Limitation: it can not measure memory, desirability
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NEWER METHODS IN ADVERTISING RESEARCH
 Breathing (respiration rate):
 Measured with breaths per minute (BPM)
 Two antagonistic systems:
 Sympathetic nervous system (fight-or-flight ): Increase in respiration rate
(arousal)
 Parasympathetic (rest-and-digest): Decrease in respiration rate(calm and
relaxed state)
 Respiration sinus arrhythmia (RSA): Undulation of heart rate (arousal)
 Limitation: Can not measure emotional valence, memory, desirability
(Frazier, Thomas W., Milton E. Strauss, and Stuart R. Steinhauer 2004)
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NEWER METHODS IN ADVERTISING RESEARCH
 Skin conductance response (SCR): electrodermal
response
 Skin becomes better electrical conductor due to increased activity of
eccrine (sweat) glands
 SCR to measure tonic activity of the SNS
 Increase in SCR amplitude and response latency (delay) Increase
SNS  Arousal
 Limitation: Can not measure emotional valence, memory, desirability
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NEWER METHODS IN ADVERTISING RESEARCH
 Electroencephalography (EEG)
 Most commonly used neuroscience method in advertising research
 Recordings of the electrical activity along the cortical brain regions
 EEG measures voltage fluctuations resulting from ionic current
flows within the neurons of the brain
 EEG activity reflects the summation of the synchronous activity of
thousands/millions of neurons that have similar spatial orientation
 EEG activity show oscillations (synchronized activity over network
of neurons) in different frequencies
www.psych.nmsu.edu/~jkroger/lab/EEG_Introduction.html
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NEWER METHODS IN ADVERTISING RESEARCH
 Scalp locations and brain regions
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NEWER METHODS IN ADVERTISING RESEARCH
www.meditationasheville.blogspot.com
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NEWER METHODS IN ADVERTISING RESEARCH
 EEG frequencies:
 Delta (<4 Hz): Highest in amplitude and slowest in wave
 Frontal in adults and posterior in children
 Deep sleep or meditation
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NEWER METHODS IN ADVERTISING RESEARCH
 EEG frequencies:
 Theta (4-7 Hz): Higher in young children
 Frontal in adults and posterior in children
 Drowsiness, idling, imagination, light sleep
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NEWER METHODS IN ADVERTISING RESEARCH
 EEG frequencies:
 Alpha (8-12 Hz):
 Alert but relaxed, reflecting, closing eyes, inhibition
 Decrease posterior (occipital) alpha: Activation in the visual system
Visual processing Exogenous attention
(Klimesch, Sauseng, and Hanslmayr 2007)
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NEWER METHODS IN ADVERTISING RESEARCH
 Increase posterior alpha  Working memory
(Jensen, Gelfand, Kounios, and Lisman 2002)
 Sensory and motor cortical alpha: Hands and arms are idle 
Alpha suppression as a biomarker for mirror system (MNS)
activity
 Frontal asymmetry (less alpha band activity):
 Left hemisphere Positive emotions Approach motivation
 Right hemisphere Negative emotions  Withdraw
(Schmidt and Trainor 2001)
(Harmon-Jones, Gable, and Peterson 2010)
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NEWER METHODS IN ADVERTISING RESEARCH
 EEG frequencies:
 Beta (13-30 Hz):
 Focus, consciousness, alert, active thinking, excitement,
anxious
 Decrease in beta power over temporal scalp locations  Tasks
that requires sustained monitoring of external emotional stimuli
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NEWER METHODS IN ADVERTISING RESEARCH
 EEG frequencies:
 Gamma (30-100 Hz):
 Somatosensory cortex
 Problem solving, concentration
 Modulation of gamma activity in relation to memory and
attention
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NEWER METHODS IN ADVERTISING RESEARCH
 EEG artifacts:
 Biological artifacts: eye-induced artifacts, cardiac artifacts, muscleinduced artifacts
 Environmental artifacts: poor grounding, electronic devices, local power
system
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NEWER METHODS IN ADVERTISING RESEARCH
 Advantages:

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Low cost relative to other methods
Mobility: can be used in different places
Extremely high temporal resolution
Relatively tolerant to subject movements
Silent: allows studying auditory stimulus
Extremely non-invasive and save
EEG does not aggravate claustrophobia
Studies can be conducted with relatively simple paradigms
EEG can detect covert processing (i.e., processing that does not
require a response)
 EEG can be used in subjects who are incapable of making a motor
response
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NEWER METHODS IN ADVERTISING RESEARCH
 Disadvantages:
 Low spatial resolution on the scalp: Requires interpretation
 EEG poorly measures neural activity that occurs below the upper layers
of the brain (the cortex)
 Often takes a long time to connect a subject to EEG
 Signal-to-noise ratio is poor: Large sample size is required
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NEWER METHODS IN ADVERTISING RESEARCH
 Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)
 Functional MRI (fMRI) is an indirect non-invasive method of imaging
brain activity. The principle relies on detecting the transient
hemodynamic response (changes in the blood oxygenation) provoked
by neuronal activity (neurovascular coupling) during cognitive task.
 Neuronal activity provokes an increase in oxygen consumption and an
even higher increase in local blood flow (neurovascular coupling).
As the increase in flow exceeds the increase in oxygen consumption,
neuronal activity is expressed as a relative increase in oxyhemoglobin
compared to deoxyhemoglobin in the activated zones. The relative
decrease in deoxyhemoglobin concentration, which has a paramagnetic
effect, can be detected by MRI as a weak transient rise in the T2*
weighted signal. This is the BOLD contrast principle (Blood
Oxygenation Level Dependent).
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NEWER METHODS IN ADVERTISING RESEARCH
 Neural activations as a measure of attention
 Exogenous attention (color, shape, brightness) is measured through
activation in primary visual cortex
 Endogenous attention (goals, internal states, expectations) is
associated with activations in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC).
en.wikipedia.org
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NEWER METHODS IN ADVERTISING RESEARCH
 Neural activations as a measure of affect/emotions
Amygdala is key part in the limbic
system (the emotional brain):
emotional processing
Increase in amygdala activity
Increase in affective intensity
(emotional arousal)
http://gettingstronger.org/2012/01/hormesis-and-the-limbic-brain/
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NEWER METHODS IN ADVERTISING RESEARCH
 Neural activations as a measure of memory
Hippocampus activation
provides a measure of the
strength of encoding during the
ad. Greater activation of
hippocampus for remembered
versus forgotten ads. It also
plays important role in the
consolidation of information
from short-term memory to longterm memory.
https://neuroanatomy.wikispaces.com/F+Limbic+System
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NEWER METHODS IN ADVERTISING RESEARCH
 Neural activations as a measure of desirability
 Ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC): Willingness to pay for specific
branded product  Predicting consumer behavior
 Ventral striatum (primary dopaminergic target): Consumption of
rewards, wanting  Subsequent purchase
(Blakemore, Sarah-Jayne, and Robbins 2012, p. 1186)
https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/health-wellness/2011/11/07/how-willpower-works/XlOvEG4FipvZ8vM8VUNBpK/story.html
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SOCIAL NEUROMARKETING

We are social creatures. The need to reach out to and connect with others
is one of the primary drivers of our behavior in every aspects of our lives.

Marketing is social activity.

Why do we study consumer behavior in isolation?

We studied underlying neural processes associated with consumers’
adjustments to the social context?

“Being with You Increases My Attention to Luxury Products: Using EEG to
Understand Consumers’ Emotional Experience of Luxury Branded
Products”

The results of our study confirm the regulatory role of mere presence of
other people on consumers’ behavior. In other words, people attend
differently to visual marketing stimuli (branded products, ads) when viewed
alone than in the co-presence of others.
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SOCIAL NEUROMARKETING
 Event-related potentials (ERP): Time-lock and average the signal
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SOCIAL NEUROMARKETING
 Selective attention provides a mechanism to bias neuronal activity
to represent behaviorally relevant stimuli in cluttered scenes,
irrelevant information being filtered out.
(Vuilleumier 2005, p. 587)
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SOCIAL NEUROMARKETING
 Mere presence of others evokes arousal (automatic
physiological process) reflected by higher early
selective attention
(Pozharliev et al., 2015, p. 551)
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SOCIAL NEUROMARKETING
 Social facilitation theory: the arousal produced by the mere
presence of the others amplifies the dominant response which in
our case is the allocation of attention to emotionally significant
marketing visual stimuli
(Pozharliev et al., 2015, p. 552)
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SOCIAL NEUROMARKETING

The modulation of attention resources toward emotionally significant visual
stimuli in the mere presence conditions is most likely an unconscious
process.

72.5% of the participants answered they felt no difference between viewing
the marketing visual stimuli in either condition

Managerial Implications:
 Marketers should try to create social platforms where potential
customers can experience brand advertising intensely
 Marketers of luxury branded products should exploit the amplifying
effect of mere presence in emotionally significant visual stimuli which is
likely to motivate people to adjust their viewing behavior
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WRAP UP THE LECTURE
 Methods, measures and constructs in advertising
(Venkatraman et al., 2015, p.440 )
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ASSIGNMENT 2
To be submitted: Date: 12-10-2016; Time: 18:00; Location: Nood-1
Select a brand.
1) Select a recent commercial of that brand. What is the main objective of
the advertisement? How would you describe the commercial message
strategy (Cognitive & Affective perspective). Please elaborate.
2) What type of appeal is used in this commercial (Soft vs. Hard). Does this
appeal fit the message strategy and the execution framework? Please
elaborate. If no fit, what would you change to improve it?
3) Which interactive marketing tool(s) (e.g. websites, online marketing, web
communities) is your brand engaged with? Can you brand benefit from
using some other marketing communication tools (e.g. Brand placement,
PR, Sales promotions)? Please elaborate.
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ASSIGNMENT 2
4) Which traditional method(s) and measure(s) would you use to measure the
effectiveness of the previously discussed commercial (point 1). Explain why
this/these specific method(s) and measure(s).
5) Use again the selected commercial (point 1). Select two out of the four
advertising constructs (attention, emotion, memory, desirability). Which
neuromarketing method(s) would you use to measure the effectiveness of the
selected commercial in relation to the two constructs? Explain why.
.
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REFERENCES (EXAM LITERATURE IN RED)
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Blakemore, Sarah-Jayne, and Trevor W. Robbins (2012), "Decision-Making in the Adolescent
Brain," Nature Neuroscience, 15 (9), 1184-1191.
Frazier, Thomas W., Milton E. Strauss, and Stuart R. Steinhauer (2004), "Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia
as an Index of Emotional Response in Young Adults,"Psychophysiology , 41 (1), 75-83.
Jensen, O., Gelfand, J., Kounios, J., and Lisman, J. E. (2002), “Oscillations in the Alpha Band (9–12
Hz) Increase with Memory Load During Retention in a Short-Term Memory Task,” Cerebral Cortex, 12
(8), 877-882.
Klimesch, Wolfgang, Paul Sauseng, and Simon Hanslmayr (2007), "EEG Alpha Oscillations: The
Inhibition–Timing Hypothesis," Brain Research Reviews , 53 (1), 63-88.
Pozharliev, R., Verbeke, W. J., Van Strien, J. W., and Bagozzi, R. P. (2015), “Merely Being with You
Increases My Attention to Luxury Products: Using EEG to Understand Consumers' Emotional
Experience with Luxury Branded Products,” Journal of Marketing Research, 52 (4), 546-558.
Schifferstein, Hendrik NJ, Katrin SS Talke, and Dirk-Jan Oudshoorn (2011), "Can Ambient scent
Enhance the Nightlife Experience?," Chemosensory Perception, 4 (1-2), 55-64.
Schmidt, Louis A., and Laurel J. Trainor (2001), "Frontal Brain Electrical Activity (EEG) Distinguishes
Valence and Intensity of Musical Emotions," Cognition and Emotion, 15 (4), 487-500.
Venkatraman, V., Dimoka, A., Pavlou, P. A., Vo, K., Hampton, W., Bollinger, B., and Winer, R. S.
(2015), “Predicting Advertising Success Beyond Traditional Measures: New Insights from
Neurophysiological Methods and Market Response Modeling,” Journal of Marketing Research, 52 (4),
436-452.
Vuilleumier, Patrik (2005), "How Brains Beware: Neural Mechanisms of Emotional Attention," Trends in
Cognitive Sciences, 9 (12), 585-594.
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