HYDERABAD: Marketers get expensive ads made and place them in the media hoping they will attract their potential customers. But is there a way for them to test the ad’s effectiveness in connecting to the target audience? Surveys and questionnaires do go some way but not as far as marketers would like.
An IT-enabled tool that goes beyond rudimentary analysis was showcased at the two-day software expo here last week. It’s an eye-tracker, which also offers reading as well as emotion metrics. In other words, one can know precisely as to how much time a viewer spent on the visual, the copy, logo and other elements. In addition, the new tool promises a metric of the emotional responses of the viewer to these elements.
iMotions, a software products company based in Denmark, which showcased this product, says the technology works can be used for print ads, TV ads, web pages, cinema, etc.
Explaining the product features at the conference, Ms. Sita, the company’s marketing representative, said: “In surveys and questionnaires, the subject is conscious and the responses may not be wholly genuine. In eye-tracking, this is done at a sub-conscious level and is more accurate.”
The company, which has a patent for emotion measurement, charges Rs. 10,000 for a still image, and Rs. 20,000 for a video. And the analysis takes no more than an hour. She said in one instance, Cadbury cut its ad length from 30 seconds to 15 seconds based on their test results.
The eye-tracker looks essentially like a monitor, but has built-in eye-trackers. The eye tracking is a 60-year-old technology that has been in use in medicine, but in emotional response measurement the company claims that it has no competitor across the world.
Among the company’s 15 major global customers is the US-based Cunningham Research Group. It also has collaboration with a market research firm apart from direct sales to FMCG companies.
In India, iMotions has a major client in a TV ratings agency and sees bright prospects, citing a Madison estimate that the advertising industry will be worth Rs. 21,000 crore this year.
The five-year-old company, which commercially launched its products four years ago, has not achieved break-even as yet.