-1 - Using Faces Measuring Emotional Engagement for Early Stage Creative

This paper outlines what led to the construction of our emotional measurement technique, and the psychological theory underpinning it. It describes some important new findings for the measurement of emotion in advertising: i. Emotions drive everything we do, so absence of emotion results in inaction ii. The right emotion will produce the desired action – happiness for commercial ends; fear, anger, disgust for social ends iii. Advert understanding and the propensity for attitude change is determined by the emotional trigger (reflective or autonomic) and cognitive post-processing of the emotion-2-Introduction Purchase intention, relevance, understanding, brand recall; there will be few researchers who are unfamiliar with these measures and constructs – questions that have been used over the years to help marketers to understand whether their stimulus has had the desired effect on its audience. These are the questions we ask to establish how the consumer has responded to the information seen, and to gauge whether it will influence their behaviour. They help us to predict brand awareness, penetration and repeat purchasing, and are designed to plug straight into the sales and marketing mechanisms of the companies and organisations who commission research. But do they really tell us what is going through consumers' minds when they see a new product idea or a new advertisement? Do they even attempt to mirror the appraisal mechanisms in the human brain? Leading psychologists agree, emotions are at the heart of everything we do 1. Our emotions guide our everyday choices and determine our biggest decisions. Our lives are often arranged to maximise the number of pleasurable emotions and to minimise those feelings that are less enjoyable. Emotions can last for just the briefest of moments, but can be all-consuming. They can both save our lives and put them at risk, and there are times when they can even overcome our most basic instincts for survival. They stir and prepare the conscious mind for important events, and influence and preempt our judgements, yet where do our emotions fit into the familiar measures so widely used by researchers? Emotions feel as though they are happening to us, as though we have little control over them or the impulses that trigger them. And we like to think that, when making hard-headed decisions in the commercial world, it is reason and thought – over which we exercise greater control – that should be measured. In organisations an emphasis is …