Marketers and brands are constantly looking to respond to what they believe the consumer is looking for. However, many of the tactics employed to interpret consumer demand focus on the ‘how’ but not the ‘why’. Super cookies, browser fingerprints and location-based tracking are popular technologies in the marketers’ toolkit, and form a base for targeted activity. But it seems as though the deeper, underlying reasons for decision-making are something that can only be discovered with more thorough investigation.
Brands are now looking to uncover consumers’ emotional responses to marketing, advertising, products or experiences in more sophisticated ways. Below are three ways brands can use the latest technology to get to the heart of the emotion in decision-making.
- All about face – there is a growing recognition that what people say they do, and what they actually do, are two very different things. People give responses based on a wide variety of factors dependent on what they’re being asked. For instance, when asked questions that can establish the morality of a person, such as the purchasing of sustainable goods even if at a higher cost, many people will adhere to the ‘social desirability bias’ and portray how they would like to be perceived rather than admit their actual behaviour – making the response skewed. A proportion of consumers, when asked why they buy a product, may not be conscious of the real emotional driver behind their decision. The rise in availability of facial monitoring technology and expert analysis means researchers can really get to the heart of decision-making.
- The eyes can’t lie – eye-tracking is big business, and can be invaluable to brands and marketers looking to establish the likely success of an ad campaign before investing time and money in the project. A study was carried out by one of our partners, eye-tracking specialist Sticky, of more than 1,200 consumers across the UK and US (using Cint’s panel marketplace) who were shown a number of adverts and then subsequently asked if they recalled seeing them. The study revealed that an average of 25 per cent of respondents actually saw the ad but didn’t recall doing so and 10 per cent recalled seeing an ad but actually hadn’t. This illustrated a ‘see say’ gap highlighting the validity of this kind of technology in helping marketers to better understand the effect of campaigns they invest in, as well as better understand the audience they are targeting. The result: enhanced ROI.
- Brain storming – tapping into your brain may feel a tad intrusive, but neuromarketing is a solution growing in popularity that can be used alongside technologies such as eye-tracking. It gives further insight into a decision-making process using responses from our subconscious mind, and works by measuring electrical responses from the scalp to denote which emotion is gaining dominance when presented with a certain stimulus. Measurement is based on three key emotions; excitement, engagement and frustration – recognised key indicators of emotions that are significant in decision-making. Is there anywhere that’s sacred anymore in the quest to gain consumer insights?
These technologies, combined with the increasing use of behaviour tracking devices such as wearables, which are gathering momentum and in sophistication – will enable consumer insights to evolve significantly in the coming years. It is indicative of the changing face of marketing and marketers will need to continue to embrace this technology and a combination approach to insights gathering to ensure success of campaigns and in turn, real ROI.
