Web Summit Rio: The role of emotional response in innovative marketing

May will be an important month for the Brazilian technology sector and also the world, with the arrival of the first edition of the Web Summit, the largest technology and innovation conference in Europe, held since 2009, in Rio de Janeiro.

According to Paddy Cosgrave, founder and CEO of the event, Rio was chosen to host because it is widely seen as one of the hottest destinations for the technology industry. “International investors are eyeing Latin America and Brazil in particular, attracted by some of the hottest startups in the region. We feel it’s the place to be right now,” he said in an interview with Fast Company Brazil.

The conference will also be the stage for important discussions about marketing and advertising at PandaCof, the Web Summit track that promises to leave no stone unturned while exploring current marketing trends and delving into the future of the industry.

There will be many discussions, divided into major themes:

1. Social media marketing and influence
   With a global market valued at $602 billion, panels will discuss the trends related to digital advertising, the role of social media, influencer marketing best practices.

1. Adtech and beyond
   What will become of advertising with the metaverse and Web3? How can brands take advantage of adtech in an efficient way? Learn what the pioneers are doing and the innovative ways they are engaging their customers.

1. The end of the cookie
   With the end of third-party cookies postponed until 2024, there is still time to prepare and discuss what this reality will look like for marketing. What is being designed and planned for a privacy-centric and anti-tracking world.

1. Branding and marketing with purpose
   It’s 2023, we’ve been through a pandemic and it’s become clear that brands cannot be dissociated from their purpose. Even consumers want to choose brands that are aligned with their own personal values. Discover how values-based storytelling can transform your business.

Innovative marketing and its power to face crises

Even with so many themes, it is clear that they all converge in an attempt to understand and use trends, new technologies and research in favor of more innovative marketing. Marketing professor Mark Ritson noted on the Uncensored CMO podcast that this recession is the first in which many companies are making a point of not cutting marketing spending entirely.

But how to unite innovation and consistency to maintain an engaged and loyal audience? Data from System1 suggests that it’s the fluent innovations – those that are 80% familiar and 20% new – that really take off. In addition, it is critical to keep innovating – especially now. Notin Nohria, in a work published in the Harvard Business Review, “Roaring out of Recession”, already warned that it is not only about retaining marketing expenses, but also investment in R&D, which is the key to survival.

Creativity and emotional appeal in innovative marketing

Innovation alone is no guarantee of success for brands. In a year in which the increased use of and research on artificial reality and intelligence is evident, emotional appeal and creativity are essential. These two qualities make innovative marketing even more effective.

First, creativity is what will distinguish an activation, campaign, strategy, in a cacophonous universe of different stimuli in which we currently live — multiscreens, multiprofiles, multimedia. The emotional appeal is capable of holding the attention of audiences and converting their engagement into growth — after all, the more people feel, the more they buy.

But how can brands know if their creative will resonate with consumers? That’s where testing comes in.

On May 2nd, Jon Evans, Chief Customer Officer of System1 and creator of the Uncensored CMO podcast, will open PandaCof at Web Summit Rio. System1 knows that metrics based on emotion accurately predict the success of campaigns. Using testing platforms, like System1’s Test Your Ad, is a tactic that can help brands maximize their marketing budgets by predicting the effectiveness of ads and improving them further by revealing the emotional responses they elicit. With this, it is possible to align innovation, creativity and emotional engagement of the public.

How to evaluate your ad based on emotional response?

Testing has come a long way over the years and today it can mean the difference between a campaign that drives market share and profit growth and an expensive investment that doesn’t deliver results.

So, how does System1’s Test Your Ad platform evaluate viewers’ emotional responses? We developed our own emotion measurement method called FaceTrace®, a facial coding process based on the work of psychologist Paul Ekman. Here we take Ekman’s seven basic emotions: happiness, surprise, fear, disgust, anger, contempt and sadness, in addition to adding neutrality to our model to measure the absence of feeling, as it is possible for people to be indifferent to creative.

We conduct testing with nat rep audiences and can also build custom samples to help brands understand the impact their advertising will have on specific target audiences, like parents, those 55 years and older, women, the LGBTQ+ community and more.

For each ad, you’ll see our short-term and long-term growth forecasts, as well as second-by-second projections of what audiences feel and when they recognize the brand. Data from our tests show that a 4- or 5-Star ad can work for a brand for years and even further improve its effectiveness over time. And you’ll see exactly where the ad fits in this year’s rankings and how it compares to its competitors on a platform that contains creative effectiveness data on over 92,000 ads.

Not only can testing ads encourage brands to invest in high-scoring creative, but it can provide a warning that the creative needs a pivot or a complete overhaul if it’s scoring in the 1- or 2-Star range. Gaining insight into how audiences feel about an ad and what is driving those emotions allows brands to make adjustments that will increase the effectiveness of ads in the long run.

At Web Summit Rio, we’ll be showcasing Test Your Ad’s capabilities and offering free testing and guidance sessions for brands that are interested in maximizing the impact of their next campaign. Be sure to stop by the System1 stand to learn more.