Spring Measures Emotional Ad Response

UK-based decision-making research specialist Spring has launched 'Emotimeter', a new methodology to measure the emotional resonance of advertising campaigns using emoticons and other novel ingredients.

Designed to be powerful but also inexpensive, the technique aims to help clients 'explore the totality of consumer response to creative by getting beyond the rational to understand more emotional drivers.' The firm says combined quant and qual projects can be debriefed in under 2 weeks.

Developed in conjunction with nQual, Emotimeter asks respondents to demonstrate the level of emotion they feel in response to an advertising campaign, through a heart beat using an ECG style graphic, whose frequency they can increase or decrease to match the strength of their feelings about an ad - Spring sees this as the key to the ad's success.

Respondents are then asked to define their emotions, by choosing between different styles and sizes of emoticon. They are also asked for comments and concept-ranking to capture rational, or left-brain, reactions. Spring then take the most creative of the respondents through to a series of online groups to excplore possible improvements to the ad. Lastly, Emotimeter will give each campaign a score based on the number of people who rated the advert as 'brilliant' - seen as likely 'promoters' of the ad.

Founder Stephen Phillips comments: 'Whether it's the intense drama of Guinness 'Surfers' or the irritating Cilit Bang man, the most memorable ads inspire emotion. Research has a vital role to play in assessing creative executions but by asking consumers to put emotions into words, you run right brain thinking through a left brain filter, creating an over-rationalisation of a gut feeling. Emotimeter is designed to give agencies intuitive insight into the magic of their work.'

Matthew Palmer, Group Head of Planning at client Leagas Delaney London adds: 'Many of us working in advertising agencies have long argued that the emotional response to communications is the first and most important one.'

Spring is on the web at www.springresearch.co.uk .