Beating the Brain Game
Communications success in the new era of
Neuroscience
© TNS
Which advert do you like best?
© TNS
2
Which advert do you like best?
© TNS
3
Which advert do you like best?
© TNS
4
Let’s ask the question differently:
Which advert is working hardest?
What does ‘working hardest’ actually mean?
© TNS
6
Contents
1
3
Learning from neuroscience
7
2
Remember ‘memory’
© TNS
12
Neuroscience
‘stamp of approval’
16
4
An additional layer of understanding
21
6
1
Learning from neuroscience
Current ‘industry standard’ measures
Purchase
intent
Liking
Interest
Believability
Recall
Message Takeout
© TNS
 Sales focus
 Traditional AIDA
framework
 Information-processing
model – clear message
with strong recall and is
believable and understood
8
‘The Primacy of Affect’ – feelings come first
Poets have known this for centuries…
Neuroscientists have long called for
this truth to be embraced in
understanding human behaviour
Wundt (1907), Zajonc (1980),
Damasio (1996), Heath (2008),
Ratnayake (2010)
© TNS
9
The importance of long term brand building goals
SOURCE : Binet & Field (2013) The Long and the Short of it – Balancing Short and Long-Term Marketing Strategies. Institute of Practioners of Advertising (UK) in association with Thinkbox,
© TNS
10
A holistic view of advertising success
1
Short term sales
activation
Standard industry
measures are good at
capturing the short-term
sales impact of adverts –
the ability to activate
© TNS
2
Long term
brand impact
Measures around the ad’s
ability to build the brand
based on the primacy of
affect
11
2
Remember ‘memory’
Memories aid decision making
Autobiographical
memory
Brand information associated with self-relevant, personal lifetime
experiences. Results in hedonic brand choices over rational
evaluations. Feeds into System 1 decisions.
Semantic
memory
Brand knowledge about features and attributes with little connection
to self-identity systems. Involves abstract information about the brand
that leads to rational choices. Feeds into System 2 decisions.
© TNS
13
1
Effective communications ease decision making by
creating memories that embed the brand into
meaningful, personally relevant contexts
2
Long term goal of ad: embed the brand in the
autobiographical memory.
© TNS
14
Information that gets embedded into long-term
memory has to pass 3 gateways
NOVELTY
The difference between
expectations and reality
AFFECTIVE IMPACT
The affective value of
the information (does it
personally connect)
RELEVANCE
Relevant to current
goals
‘To what extent, if at all,
did this ad convey
something better than
you expected?’
‘How vividly, if at all,
does the ad you’ve just
seen remind you about
things you personally
care about?’
‘When you think about
which <category> is
best for you, to what
extent, did this ad
contain something that
is relevant to you?’
SOURCE : Lisman & Grace (2005). The Hippocampal-VTA Loop: Controlling the Entry of Information into the Long-Term Memory.
© TNS
14
Two key questions
1
2
Are we able to reflect the unconscious
response to the ad?
© TNS
Do these questions ad an additional
layer of understanding?
15
3
Neuroscience
‘stamp of approval’
Research methodology
EEG
Twenty black female participants
Partnered with HeadSpace Neuromarketing*
Three mobile network adverts and three decoy ads (randomised)
Quantitative survey
Memory filter questions
Traditional questions
*HeadSpace Neuromarketing is TNS’s partner in neuroscience research. We would like to thank them for their contribution to this research. :
© TNS
17
EEG shows Vodacom being a better all-rounder
Arousing
Engaging
Thought provoking
Novelty
Vodacom
MTN
Emotion
CellC
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
1.4
Change in Energy Relative to Baseline
© TNS
18
Memory filter questions reveal the same
Vodacom
Novelty
CellC
Novelty +
Affective
Novelty +
Affective +
Relevance
Novelty
54%
46%
44%
Affective
Memory
Potential
13%
Novelty +
Novelty + Affective +
Affective Relevance
7%
6%
Affective
Memory
Potential
MTN
Novelty
Novelty +
Affective
44%
50%
Top 25%
Novelty +
Affective +
Relevance
31%
Affective
Memory
Potential
Below norm
SAMPLE SIZE: n. 72 // CUSTOM FILTERS APPLIED: (Q3. Race is Black), and (Gender is Female)
© TNS
19
There is a statistical model fit between the EEG
findings and memory filter questions
Energy in the Alpha
band decreases over
the anterior regions.
Your
Your
texttext
High Rating Vodacom
viewer
baseline
© TNS
Statistical model fit
40% of the variance
explained in survey
measures are explained
by the changes in alpha
power over the frontal
regions
High Rating –
Vodacom
viewer
20
4
An additional layer of understanding
Traditional survey findings
© TNS
22
Comparing open ended responses – traditional versus
new
Traditional
‘Tell me everything about ad’
© TNS
New
‘What things that you care about does
the ad bring about?’
23
Summary
To embrace neuroscience, the industry should...
Acknowledge limitations of
traditional measures
Too much focus on sales activation; not
enough focus on long term brand impact.
Tap into passive, nonsurvey measurement
systems (e.g. EEG, fMRI)
Fully nuanced, granulated view of the
neurological effects.
Develop survey measures
that capture neuroscience
truths
Affective memory filters to access the brain’s
autobiographical memory.
© TNS
24
© TNS
25