Emotions play a crucial role in the processes of human decision-making. For this reason, their definition is one of the main challenges for marketers who want to assess the efficacy of their campaigns. This project aims to provide a prototype device that will allow company to make a Neuromarketing analysis for quantifying and qualifying the emotional engagement of their consumers. The partners which will participate in this project will be experts of neurosciences, signal processing and Neuromarketing and it will ensure the finalization of the stated objectives. Initially, a research part will be led in the project in order to define a methodology for investigating the emotions. Two experiments will be run, the first one to validate the indexes for the emotion definition, the second one for applying the validated indexes to the advertising evaluation. Finally, some emotional descriptors will be defined for describing the emotions felt and they will be employed as output of the prototypal device. In particular, the emotional response will be investigated through the analysis of some neurophysiological signals: electroencephalographic signals (EEG), galvanic skin response (GSR), heart rate (HR) and eye blink rate. The generation of the prototype device will provide for software and hardware development during the project. The final prototype will be wearable, easy to use and low-cost in order to make it affordable and attractive on the market. In fact, a part of the project will consist in generating a business plan to propose the prototype to companies that can be interested in testing their campaigns with this Neuromarketing device.
Emotions occur in every moment of the life and they are able to affect the humans¿ behavior and their decision making. In several contexts like in art, music, theatre but also in books and movies, emotions are a mean to capture the interest of the audience and to convey core messages. In the same way companies which make advertisings invest part of their capital in marketing strategies based on emotions. Moving the public in a specific way it is possible to influence the perception of products and messages, making the campaigns more effective.
The outcome of NeuroMotion project, a prototype device for measuring the emotions while watching videos, would allow companies to understand whether their advertisings move the spectators in the desired way for eventually changing their marketing strategies. Through this project, the Neuromarketing methodologies to detect the cerebral reaction during emotional feelings will be improved and extended. Alongside the standard AWI, EI and CE indexes, generally employed in this field, we will exploit also the level of engagement, through the analysis of the eye blink rate will. In this way we will have a detailed overview of the individual emotional engagement during the ads observation. The use of objective measurements, alongside the self-report judgments during the exposure to the videos will allow to state the subject¿s reaction to marketing assets under different exposure conditions.
The novelty of the project consists in developing a complex device which, however, will be easy to employ. Companies that are interested in Neuromarketing techniques will be able to test their ads on their own, without the intervention of the experts. This will be possible thanks to low cost wearable devices which will constitute the prototype¿s hardware and thanks to the descriptors, fine-tuned in the project, which will explain the results in a simple and easily understandable way. Through the prototype developed in NeuroMotion project, companies will test whether their campaigns elicit an emotional engagement and what kind of emotions the public feel with respect to the ads they watch. Furthermore, it will be possible to understand what part of the advertising is emotional and ascertain if the results obtained in the analysis coincides with the marketing expectations.
NeuroMotion will revolutionize the world of marketing, making Neuromarketing within the reach of everybody. The conceived prototypal device can be employed not only for mere profit but also for making more attractive and effective social campaigns such as those designed for charity purposes. This project is precursor of a reality in which humans and technology will be part of an embedded system, developed with the aim of improving and simplifying the human life.
The expertise of the partners who will take part in NeuroMotion project will assure the accomplishment of the purposes described in the previous paragraphs and the appropriate realization of the project.
It is important to note that all the partners of this project have already cooperated in joint projects and they have already developed a smooth cooperative work. In particular, prof. Babiloni has joint publications with all the components of the research group. The smoothness of the research work is then assured.
This project has several distinct research parts that will be covered in this way:
1) A technological and neuroscientific counterpart for running the research experiments, making the signal processing and the exploitation of neurometrics for the emotional measurement: such area is covered by Alessia Vozzi (biomedical engineering) with the help of the research group of professor Fabio Babiloni, under the supervision of professor Fabio Babiloni (who has expertise in neuroscience and biomedical engineering)
2) A Neuromarketing counterpart for the analysis of the advertisings and the interpretation of the results that will be covered by a spin-off of the Sapienza University: BrainSigns. BrainSigns is a company leader in the field of Neuromarketing which boasts an excellent team headed by dr Patrizia Cherubino (marketing and Neuromarketing expert). The company would also implement a marketing strategy for the device to be realized. Furthermore, its expertise in the project will open the cooperation with external companies potentially interested in the use of the prototypal device to be generated by the NeuroMotion project.
The involvement of all the partners will be immediate from month 1 of the project, each one in the respective areas of involvement.