Nielsen Buys Into NeuroFocus

Did you ever feel like advertisers and companies are doing everything they can to "get into your head"? Well, in the case of the Nielsen Co., that's exactly what they are trying to do.

Last Thursday, Nielsen announced plans to join forces with NeuroFocus, a company that focuses on applying brainwave research to advertising and messaging. The company is based in Berkeley, California and will use EEG (electroencephalography) to directly measure the brain's reaction to stimuli. This "strategic investment" by Nielsen will help the company to gauge the feelings and attitudes of the viewers as they watch their favorite programs and intermittent advertisements.

Although term were not disclosed, the plan is to use specially designed baseball caps that NeuroFocis has planted wires in to monitor brain activity and track neurological responses to the programs being watched. They also intend to use other psychological tools such as eye tracking devices and galvanic skin response, which monitors the skins reactions to emotional arousal. The focus will be on bringing to market new "science-based products, services and metrics to clients in consumer packaged goods, television, film and emerging media." This will help to understand exactly what each type of consumer is most attracted to and what types of media are most engaging.

Having a bit of a Psych background myself, I think this will be an interesting study that will give marketers and researchers valuable data as far as what engages that brain, but I also feel that there may be a data overload. No two people think or feel exactly alike and therefore, researchers will have a hard time drawing conclusions about their findings. It may be difficult to divide people into accurate categories because of these inherent differences, thus making it difficult to know exactly what appeals to different viewer groups. At the same time though, I think it will be interesting to see what finding the teams come up with.