Falling in love with ads….Measuring that hair standing up tingle

Anyone else catch “Ad Men” on Sky Atlantic?  Great to see our own legends of the small, and large screen, talking about how Ad Land developed, being influenced by the US industry, the creativity of the 70s through to the excesses of the 80s.  Favourite moment was Ridley Scott telling the story of when someone suggested as he was so great at making ads, he might consider making films.

And it was a great excuse to include many of our favourite ads pack into an hour.  From the BA “Face” ad to the Guinness Surfer, so many of the ads, did that very special thing of giving me a #Tingle.  You know that special feeling you get when something moves you and literally makes your hair stand up on end?

Now what if I tell you I can measure if an ad does that to you? (And without something huge strapped to your head!). Biometrics is a technique developed to passively measure your autonomic responses (skin sweat, breathing, movement and heart rate).  And then combines these into a single engagement trace that plots these responses across your ad.

It’s a great technique for all ads, but we especially love seeing the results for the Super Bowl ads.  One of the most discussed superbowl ads was the Chrysler ad.

You can see from the trace below it was an engaging ad and there is a real emotional journey going on for viewers.  The trace dips from active into passive engagement and there are great releases for the audience as the next part of the story unfolds and draws them back in.  There is intrigue, resonance and in this case patriotic fervour.  And the final segment of the ad keeps people in the highly engaged zone right through to the end and branding…which is quite a feat.   And probably why it is one of those ads that gives me that hair raising tingle every time I watch it.

Want to find out more – visit our website or give Keith Glasspoole a shout (Keith.Glasspoole@ipsos.com).

Louise Brice is a Research Director at Ipsos ASI