MediaScience is the leading provider of lab-based media and advertising research, incorporating a range of neuro-measures including biometrics, facial expression analysis, eye tracking, EEG, and more. With state-of-the-art labs in New York, Chicago, and Austin, MediaScience is discovering actionable insights in advertising, technology, media, and consumer trends.
Dr. Duane Varan, the global authority of neuromarketing research, founded Audience Labs (formerly the Interactive Television Research Institute) during his tenure at Murdoch University in Perth, Australia, in 2001. In 2005, he launched the Beyond : 30 Project, a consortium exploring the changing media and advertising landscape, and in 2008, he was approached by Disney Media Networks to set up a dedicated custom research lab on a broader scale – and so MediaScience was born. Though he officially left Murdoch in 2015, he continues to maintain some research links with the University of South Australia and has been widely recognised for his innovative contributions to teaching and the neuromarketing industry as evidenced by a long list of awards and over 90 published academic papers in his field.
Below is an abstract from one of his papers about Productive play time: the effect of practice on consumer demand for hedonic experiences from the Journal of The Academy of Marketing Science.
Abstract:
In this paper we explain how practice, prior knowledge and task difficulty interact to affect demand for hedonic experiences. As predicted by the human capital model, we propose that the key determinant of demand for hedonic experiences is the increase in performance efficiency that can be gained through practice. In addition, we argue that the nature of the effect of practice is distinctly different in hedonic consumption, compared to utilitarian consumption. Specifically, for hedonic experiences, practice allows consumers to extract greater value within a given period of time, rather than reduce the amount of time spent on a (utilitarian) task. Finally, we argue that if changes in performance efficiency across repeated hedonic experiences adhere to the power law of practice, then both prior knowledge and task difficulty will be important moderators of the main effect of practice on demand. These predictions are tested in two experiments that use an online panel to examine consumer demand for videogames.
Citation:
Murray, K.B., Bellman, S. Productive play time: the effect of practice on consumer demand for hedonic experiences. J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. 39, 376–391 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-010-0205-6