Gauging emotion: ‘Moving from what people say to what they do’

Hollow was leading an Impact 2019 panel session looking into how new forms of research can allow marketers to establish when interest is real, feigned or exaggerated.

Skim research manager Judith Suttrup and senior researcher Samantha Bond discussed how their work for client Johnson & Johnson saw them employ the services of German firm audeering, which specialises in detecting emotions in subconscious reactions.

"We hypothesised that maybe it was the case that doing quantitative we were relying too much on what people were telling us," said Bond.

Along with client Johnson & Johnson, Skim sought to explore the area of stress management around a smart wearable called Smart Health Band.

A mobile survey was conducted among consumers who had been introduced to the concept. The traditional quantitative aspect of the research found that 87% of consumers said they were interested in purchasing the product. But Audeering’s technology allowed Skim to analyse "50 emotions and emotional states, one being interest". 

The results showed that 75% of respondents had an interest based on their voice, while the methodology also showed a positive emotional response when consumers talked about the product as a solution.

Elsewhere during the session, Chris Bisset, head of category at Rentokil Initial, and Andy Myers, director at Walnut Unlimited, talked about the emotional impact of smell and how galvanic skin response tech allowed them to measure how pleasant scents could alleviate negative perceptions of an unpleasant environment.

Finally, Olly Robinson, research director at Basis, and Ali Rennie, research lead, search at Google, talked about research into how important loading speeds are for mobile web, how slower speeds lead to frustration, which is bad for business.