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 Program–Ad Matching and Television Ad Effectiveness: A Reinquiry Using Facial Tracking Software, from the Journal of Advertising.

This study uses a new biometric measure, computer-coded smiling, to better understand the processes observed in a classic television-advertising context study (Kamins, Marks, and Skinner 1991). This conceptual replication tests the original study’s program–ad matching effect on informational ads, which are more common than the sad ads the original study tested, using a cognitive outcome measure, recall. In both studies, positive ads perform equally well across positive and nonpositive program contexts, but nonpositive ads perform better in a matching nonpositive program context. These results strengthen the case for program–ad matching when using neutral informational and negative television commercials.

Reference:
Steven Bellman, Brooke Wooley & Duane Varan (2016) Program–Ad Matching and Television Ad Effectiveness:A Reinquiry Using Facial Tracking Software, Journal of Advertising, 45:1, 72-77, DOI: 10.1080/00913367.2015.1085816

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