Has your brain been 'Googled'?

Unless you took part in a recent study to measure the effect of Youtube advertising upon brainwaves, your brain is probably safe from Google’s probings – for now. However, measuring the brain’s response to advertising, a process called ‘neuromarketing’, could soon become a common way to develop ads which will capture our imaginations like never before.

Google employed a firm called Neurofocus to measure the impact of YouTube overlay advertisements. The firm uses biometric measures such as brainwave activity, eye-tracking and skin response to gauge the impact of ads.

Based on criteria including attention level, emotional engagement and memory retention, it then comes up with an overall ‘effectiveness’ score for ads.

The idea is that by discovering how the brain responds to the ads, companies can find out whether or not the ad will be memorable to the viewer in terms of creating long-term brand awareness.

The psychology of marketing campaigns has long been of interest to advertisers. This new way of measuring the effectiveness of ads reduces the traditionally ‘hit and miss’ aspect of advertising, creating ads which have a more measurable impact on the viewer. Sceptics have labelled the new technique ‘a little spooky’.