Affectiva Adds Emotion Analytics to Lightspeed Panel

WPP-owned digital data collection firm Lightspeed has partnered with emotion measurement specialist Affectiva, to analyse its panellists' reactions to ads via their facial expressions.

Last year, Lightspeed launched eight research products in Asia, combining its proprietary fieldwork and panel management expertise with emerging technology offers from partner companies. This initiative included Affectiva's facial coding solution, and Lightspeed will now roll out its emotion analytics services across the Americas and Europe.

Using respondents' webcams to record their facial responses while they watch online ads, Affectiva's technology measures the movement of all 43 facial muscles, while quantifying twenty facial expressions and seven emotions; the intensity of those emotions; and whether they are positive or negative. The firm's dashboard then evaluates the emotional reaction and engagement to an advertisement by age and gender, and benchmarks these measures against norms built on the analysis of more than 24,000 advertisements.

Lightspeed says it has obtained consent from a majority of its 5.5 million panel members to collect emotional measurement responses, as well as a wide range of information about habits, characteristics and behaviour. Edan Portaro, EVP, Strategic Alliances and Mobile Strategy, comments: 'In today's multi-tasking environment, it's more important than ever to design commercials that are engaging; Affectiva's emotional measurement precisely assesses video content through a variety of key metrics'.

Web sites: www.lightspeedresearch.com and www.affectiva.com .