TV Ads Make Brains Work

For eight of nine key brain areas, TV advertising generates more brain activity than the programming in which it appears, according to research conducted for VBS by Neurosense. The results are discussed by Agostino Di Falco, VBS' Head of Insight and Research, in an exclusive podcast interview this week with MR Insider.

The findings will no doubt make interesting reading for those who claim viewers 'switch off' during ad breaks. Neurosense, one of the UK's leading specialist consultancies in the use of cognitive neuroscientific methods, conducted an experiment last autumn at the Maudsley Hospital in South London. Subjects were shown a variety of TV programmes and ads while their brains were scanned using a state-of-the-art MRI scanner.

VBS (Viacom Brand Solutions) is the advertising sales operation for MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon, Paramount and E! channels. The research was commissioned to help VBS, its advertisers and agency customers better understand when TV programmes and ads are at their most (and least) effective. Di Falco explains: 'We wanted to generate a deeper understanding of the way people watch television… and to stimulate people into thinking about alternative strategies in an advertising sense.'

The nine key areas of brain activity measured are those identified by neuroscientists as needing to be stimulated to aid advertising effectiveness. Of the nine, three are from the emotional networks and one each from the part of the brain connected with Analysis, Absorption, Effort, Long-Term Memory, Short-Term Memory and Semantics. Together these allow scientists to build a picture of the human brain's real response to watching television and advertising within it.

In addition to the ads vs programmes result, the study revealed that advertising content that is relevant to the programme environment in which it appears is 24% more likely on average to generate brain activity in the areas of the brain commonly associated with advertising effectiveness.

VBS MD Nick Bampton comments: 'We can now demonstrate how making ads that fit the tone and style of the programmes around them result in a dramatic increase in brain activity and therefore advertising effectiveness. At VBS we are trying to act as 'agents of change' in the TV advertising business. We feel the business needs to move on, but needs a catalyst. We are all too concerned with relative price rather than focussing on advertising effectiveness, which is the key driver for ROI.'

The MR Insider series of podcasts aims to give the marketing and MR communities exclusive interviews and expert roundtables. The VBS podcast, in which Agostino outlines the genesis of the study, its structure, and discusses in detail the two key findings and their implications for the future of TV advertising, runs for 20 minutes and is available for free at www.techbuzz.co.uk . VBS is online at www.viacombrandsolutions.co.uk .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.