The media industry is making greater use of the precepts of
neuroscience in creating compelling content for viewers and the ARF has been
advocating neuroscience in media research for several years. Now, a recent
partnership of Nielsen Consumer Neuroscience and YuMe, a firm that looks at
cross platform content, is using neuroscience to more efficiently ascertain the
power of content across devices.
I sat down with Devin Fallon, Director, Media
Insights and Analytics at YuMe and Dr. Brendan Murray, VP of Client Services
and Neuroscience at Nielsen Consumer Neuroscience, at the recent ARF conference
and asked them the following questions:
Charlene Weisler:
What are some of the key takeaways of your collaboration?
Brendan Murray: One of the key takeaways we found was that,
from a non-conscious perspective, emerging technologies like virtual reality
and 360 video really have the opportunity to engage consumers and really get
them interested and involved in the content that is being presented. We do find
though that there is this balance or interplay that content creators, brands
and advertisers really need to keep in mind between giving people the ability
to freely explore their environment, to have that freedom that we know to be
engaging but also balancing that with the flow of the story that is trying to
be communicated. How do you let people explore their environment but also still
track whatever the story is or whatever the messaging is that you are trying to
get across? And what are some of the ways that content creators and advertisers
can actually do that?
Charlene Weisler: I
believe that your recent work involved three different sets of videos?
Devin Fallon: Yes. It was very important for us to get a
range of very different types of content. So we were very fortunate in the
partners that we were able to work with. We had a movie promo that was putting
the viewer into one of the characters from the movie and putting them in the
middle of a menacing conversation between the hero and the villain. There was a
nice experiential element to it in addition to the narrative – a real space to
explore that could take advantage of the 360 experience.
We had a helicopter flyover of the Vegas strip so purely an
experiential – no narrative, no voice over – just allowing people to feel the
sensation of hanging out of a helicopter a couple of hundred feet above the
Vegas strip and take all of that in.
Lastly we had a little bit of narrative and a little bit of
experiential – a bartender giving a demonstration of how to create absinthe. So
that was interesting for us because there was not a lot to engage with in
physical space in terms of looking around the restaurant. But there is
something about that immersive feeling of that VR content that helped pull
people into the content.
Charlene Weisler: How
would you suggest that advertisers take advantage of the different types of
content and the different types of engagement?
Brendan Murray: One of the things we mentioned before was
having the ability to freely explore the environment is very engaging for
people. But as a content creator you have to still figure out how to tell your
story. So one of the ways we found to be very effective is using audio as what
we are calling the “new director.” You as the creator are no longer directing
the experience. Whoever picks up the headset or picks up the tablet, they are
now in control of what they see. Audio can be a very powerful way to get people
to notice those cues that you really want to make sure that they actually do
catch – whether it is a character that is introducing themselves, whether you
are a brand or an advertiser and you are trying to get people to notice a
particular product. Using audio language, verbal mentions can be a very
powerful way of doing that. Then also using visuals as well, using neuroscience
learnings such as eye tracking. We know that people are drawn to faces, people
are drawn to movement. So you don’t have to do something like put up a big
flashing arrow to say “look over here.” You can use the environment in ways
that still gives people the feeling of their being in control but also guide
them through the experience.
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