Mobile-Minded:How the Brain Processes Mobile and TV Ads

insights.fb.comJune 2015

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

INTRODUCTION

METHODOLOGY

KEY FINDINGS

Capturing attentiveness

Making an impression

Evoking engagement

Maximizing memorability

CONCLUSION

APPENDIX

03

04

05

07

07

08

08

09

10

11

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

From the moment we wake up to the time we go to sleep, we are stimulated by what we can see, taste, smell, hear and touch. And as technology is increasingly playing a role in how we experience each sense, marketers are turning to new methods to understand how best to reach people and on which screens their advertising can make the most impact.

Enter neuromarketing, which according to the Neuromarketing Science & Business Association (NMSBA) “is the systematic collection and interpretation of neurological and neurophysiological insights about individuals using different protocols allowing researchers to explore non-verbal and unconscious physiological responses to various stimuli for the purposes of market research.” Though still in its infancy as a marketing research practice, neuromarketing is ultimately giving marketers a direct view into how people experience their senses rather than relying on people to report what they are experiencing.

To understand how people’s brains and physiology respond to stimuli delivered on both a smartphone and a TV, we commissioned US-based SalesBrain to conduct research at ZESTxLabs in California. We measured voluntary research participants’ biometrics—like perspiration levels, heart rate and eye movement—as well as their neural responses through an EEG.

The study assessed how much stimuli on a mobile screen and on a TV sustained attention, triggered emotions, produced distraction, required mental effort and elicited engagement. Here we present some of our topline findings. Read on for more details on the study, its design and our conclusions.

• Overall, people were more attentive and tended to feel more positively toward information presented on a smartphone than on a TV.

• People’s brains tended to be more distracted when processing information on a TV; their cognitive load was higher, meaning that their brains had to work harder.

• People can get as much personal engagement out of mobile as on TV. There was no statistically significant difference between engagement with mobile versus TV screens.

• There was a statistically significant difference in message recall when stimuli were viewed on a TV then on a smartphone. We believe this emphasizes the importance of cross-platform advertising to drive retention rates.

• Even though dimensionally the mobile screen is smaller, perceptually it’s not. When a mobile screen is held closer to our eyes, our brains perceive it to be relatively bigger than it is and our periphery narrows, as if we have blinders on. TV screens tend to sit farther away and our brains perceive it to be relatively smaller than it is. We can also be distracted by objects in our field of vision when watching TV.

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INTRODUCTION

Since its introduction 30 years ago, the mobile phone has transitioned from being “just the latest device” to a constant companion for living everyday life. In 2015, from January to April, people were spending nearly 3 hours (2.8 hours) a day on a mobile phone.1 The speed and comfort in which people have adopted mobile phones globally has led advertisers and the marketing research industry to actively study the many ways mobile contributes to advertising effectiveness. Marketers are starting to study mobile marketing questions from a physiological and neurological perspective. And the questions they’re asking are familiar: What is mobile’s role in the marketing mix? What is the best way to reach people across screens? What creative elements will resonate the most and drive people to action? These questions are now being asked through a neuromarketing lens.

1. “Internet Trends 2015—Code Conference” by Mary Meeker, KPCB, May 2015

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METHODOLOGY

Facebook commissioned SalesBrain, a US-based neuromarketing agency, to understand how people’s brains and physiology respond to identical stimuli delivered on a smartphone and a TV. The study focused on how people’s brains respond to 4 key areas: engagement, attention, emotion and retention.

Multiple neural measures2 were taken to develop a comprehensive picture of the brain’s activity when viewing a stimulus on a smartphone and on a TV. The study was conducted with 70 volunteer participants in the laboratories of the ZESTxLabs.3

All results reported as statistically significant in this paper have a 99% confidence interval unless otherwise stated. 2. For further detail into the types of neuromeasures used in this study in other research, read “The heart of the story: Peripheral physiology during narrative

exposure predicts charitable giving,” Biological Psychology Journal, http://www.neuroeconomicstudies.org/images/stories/documents/barraza2015_heart_of_story.pdf.

3. The use of neurological measurement has been extensively studied across many fields, from medicine to defense. Based on this cross-industry research, the generally accepted base size of a neuroscientific study to ensure statistically significant conclusions when studying one dependent variable is a minimum of 30 participants, with a confidence interval of 95%.

Experimental design

TV viewing

Neurological measurement (Bio, EEG and eye tracking) captured throughout

Mobile viewing

Baseline measures

TV show Stimuli

Baseline measures

Facebook News Feed

Stimuli

Fig. 1: Experimental design

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The participants, all of whom were US adults ages 18–49 (43% male, 57% female), were randomly divided into 2 groups controlling for age and gender. The study was designed to capture the unconscious reaction to stimuli viewed on a smartphone (an iPhone 6) and on a TV (a 32-inch screen):

• Each participant in each group completed a 3-minute control exercise to establish his or her individual baseline in physiology measures for each device.

• Group 1 viewed the set of stimulus ads that ranged from movie trailers to brand ads and varied in length from 30–120 seconds on TV during an ad break in a popular TV show. Following the initial exercise on a TV, Group 1 then viewed the same stimulus on a smartphone in a natural context for a mobile device, in this case within the Facebook News Feed.

• Group 2 completed the same set of exercises as Group 1 but in reverse viewing order (first on a smartphone then on a TV).

• Participants completed a brief survey on their level of retention after each presentation.

Neuromarketing studies typically focus on the neurological measures—such as approach motivation, attention, cognitive effort, distraction, emotion and engagement (ZEST)—and measure using a combination of physiological and neurological measurement techniques, including perspiration measurement, heart rate monitoring, eye tracking and electroencephalogram (EEG). The metrics that the physiological and neurological measurement techniques derive, such as changes in heart rate or the change in EEG rhythms, are analyzed in combination with proprietary analytic algorithms.

Results discussed in this paper are measured using the derived output Zak Engagement Statistic (ZEST) based on the proprietary algorithms of the ZESTxLabs. The study measured the viewing experience on each of the screens with the neurologic measurement devices. The devices assessed how much each stimulus sustained attention, triggered emotions, produced distraction, required mental effort and elicited engagement. The study did not measure the efficacy of the stimulus ads in terms of purchase intent or buying behavior.

Definition

Approach motivation Neural activity related to the experience of positive emotion and approach tendencies. Negative numbers are indicative of greater right frontal activation/withdrawal tendencies, and positive numbers are indicative of greater left frontal activation/approach tendencies.

Cognitive effort / load Neural activity related to mental involvement in the information presented. Higher values indicate greater mental effort exerted with the presented information.

Distraction Neural activity related to attending to the presented information. Higher values indicate a higher likelihood of being distracted, or less attention to the presented stimuli.

Engagement (ZEST) Autonomic activity that combines cognitive (attention) and affective (emotional) components of engagement (Zak Engagement Statistic: ZEST).

General attention Autonomic activity reflecting the sustaining of attention throughout the experience. This is one component of ZEST.

Intensity of emotions Autonomic activity reflecting emotional intensity of the experience. This is one component of ZEST.

Defining neurological measures

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KEY FINDINGS

To understand the difference between viewing the same stimuli on a smartphone and on a TV, the analysis of this consumer neuroscience study centered on 4 measures: attention, emotion, engagement and retention.

“We found that the mobile experience for the stimulus was superior on both attention and emotion, and on engagement, to some degree.” — Dr. Christophe Morin, Founder, SalesBrain

Capturing attentivenessAttention was found to be 82% higher—a statistically significant rate—when viewed on a smartphone than when viewed on a TV. Similarly, distraction was 79% lower on a smartphone screen than on a TV. One hypothesis for this result is that by having the smartphone in their hands, participants’ brains may have perceived the smartphone’s screen size to be more engaging than a TV screen.

VISUAL PERCEPTION: Based on how the research participants responded to the set of ads on each screen, we found that perceptions of screen size can differ with perspective. How participants’ brains process a screen’s size is highly influenced by how close they feel physically and emotionally to the device.

Visual perception at scale - landscape viewFig. 3: Comparing perception of screen sizes

Perceived view area 2.6X

A 32˝ TV 75” away from the viewer creates a viewing area 2.6X larger than the screen of an iPhone 6 18” away in landscape mode (rather than 8.5X in portrait mode)

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Making an impressionEmotional resonance and approach motivation were considered in evaluating the impact of the stimuli viewed on each screen.

There was not a statistically significant difference in the emotional intensity evoked by viewing the stimuli on either screen, except in one case. While generalized conclusions could not be drawn from this one instance, due to the study’s sample size, we did find that a simple storyline produced higher emotional intensity results when viewed on a smartphone compared to on a TV—at a statistically significant level of 95%.

In evaluating approach motivation, the stimuli viewed on smartphones were found to be statistically higher than on TV. In essence, when stimuli is viewed on our personal smartphones we feel more positively than when that same stimulus is viewed on TV.

Evoking engagementResults for engagement were consistent across most of the stimulus ads viewed on the smartphone and the TV, with no statistically significant difference between the 2 screens overall. At the individual stimuli level, we observed 2 of the stimuli viewed on a smartphone produced higher attention and emotional measures compared to TV. The uplift indicated that the stimuli presented on a smartphone were more engaging cognitively and emotionally, though it was not sufficient to have a statistically significant impact on the overall engagement level.

We also wanted to understand the mental effort involved in processing the messaging in the stimuli, also known as cognitive load. Academic research has shown that heavy cognitive load decreases both short-term and long-term recall.4 In this study, cognitive load was significantly higher overall for the stimuli viewed on TV. This could mean that there is a greater level of mental effort needed to process information on TV.

CREATIVE THEMES: Understanding the impact of creative on a smartphone and on a TV was not the primary focus of the research. However, some themes were uncovered that could directionally inform future marketing. Among the participants in the study, shorter ads performed better overall on mobile, with engagement and attention peaking within the first 10 seconds of the stimuli being viewed. When stimuli were viewed on a smartphone, simple creative performed better overall with the participants. In addition, creative that told a story elicited higher and more positive emotional responses overall.

4. “Cognitive load,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_load#Effects_of_heavy_cognitive_load.

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“Stories that resonate with us are highly emotional. They engage us. We care about the characters. They cause us to act.” — Dr. Paul Zak, President , ZESTxLabs and Professor, Claremont Graduate University

Maximizing memorability We extended the study to look at an element of ad effectiveness measurement with a post-exposure survey of message recall. Overall, there was no statistically significant superiority in message recall when the stimulus was viewed on a smartphone than when it was viewed on a TV.

There was, however, a significant uplift in message recall when participants viewed the stimuli on TV and then on a smartphone. It could be that ads seen on a TV followed by a smartphone help reinforce the messages across screens. We believe this finding emphasizes the importance of cross-platform advertising to drive retention rates.

Neurological measures based on viewing stimuli on a smartphone and a TVFig. 3: Neurological measures based on viewing stimuli on a smartphone and a TV

Attention***

Approach motivation**

Distraction***

Cognitive load***

Intensity of emotions

Engagement

TV higher than mobileMobile higher than TV

**p<.01 statistical significance, ***p<.001 statistical significance

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CONCLUSION

People’s daily lives are full of distractions that can’t be captured in the laboratory environment. But the results of this consumer neuroscience study can help marketers think about the neurophysiological factors that affect how people engage with stimuli delivered on different screens.

THE APPEAL OF THE MOBILE EXPERIENCE: Overall, people were more attentive and tended to feel more positively toward information presented on a smartphone than on a TV. People’s brains tended to be more distracted when processing information on TV and the mental effort was higher, meaning that their brains were working harder. When it came to emotional intensity and engagement, smartphone viewing was on par with TV viewing. In other words, there was no statistically significant difference between the 2 screens, leading to the conclusion that people can get as much emotional involvement out of mobile as they do on TV. THE MOBILE SCREEN IS NOT SO SMALL: The perceived screen size is dependent on not only the size of the screen but also its distance from us. Although the mobile screen is smaller in dimension, when it’s held closer to our eyes, our brains process the information needed to dedicate attention and perceive the mobile screen to be relatively bigger than it is. Our periphery narrows, almost as if we have blinders on. The opposite is true for TV. As a result, people’s attention on smartphones is high, whereas distraction is high on TV, presumably because distance and size may directly raise cognitive load while watching a TV. THERE’S MORE TO LEARN: This is only the beginning in understanding how neuromarketing research can inform marketing strategies by understanding the audiences marketers are trying to reach. Building upon these initial findings and others in the industry, we are just starting to explore through consumer neuroscience and neuromarketing how to tell stories that not only stimulate the brain across content types and devices but also understand what motivates consumers to act.

Source: “Neuro Mobile” by SalesBrain (study of US adults commissioned by Facebook), May 2015.

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APPENDIX

Neuromarketing is an evolving practice, and standards have been established to guide research. According to founding member of the Neuromarketing Science & Business Association (NMSBA), Dr. Christophe Morin, neuromarketing “should not be harmful to the subjects and should be mindful of the participants’ privacy and be in pursuit of the public good.” For more information about the neuromarketing code of ethics, visit the NMSBA website at http://www.nmsba.com/ethics.

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