Behavioral science demonstrates the power of emotion to drive growth. Thus, to measure long-term advertising effectiveness, we leverage psychologist Paul Ekman’s seven universal human emotions. We also add neutrality as an option as it’s possible for people to feel nothing about an ad.
The approach differs from automated facial coding in that rather than relying on an algorithm to interpret how audiences feel, System1’s Test Your Ad platform asks people to indicate how they feel about an ad shown to them. They select one of the seven basic emotions or neutral from a pictorial scale; an exercise that favors the fast processing that mimics how consumers make brand choices in the real world. In this way, across a large quantitative sample, it’s possible to establish how an ad leaves people feeling – the blend of emotions it elicits.
Because our Test Your Ad metrics are driven by emotion, they are the most predictive of business outcomes. This predictiveness is backed by more than 250 validations for our Star Rating, including in conjunction with the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA).
In a study conducted in 2009, System1 blind tested campaigns for which the IPA Effectiveness Databank held business effects data. Independent analysis by Peter Field on behalf of the IPA, using the IPA Effectiveness Databank, verified that campaigns generating a greater emotional response in System1’s testing achieved a greater number of very large business effects.
Marketers can Create with Confidence and secure buy-in from the C-suite knowing that the Star Rating is linked to commercial performance.
Mark Ritson, brand consultant and founder of the Mini MBA, credits creative as the top growth factor that brands can control, second only to brand size. Consider two approaches to predicting growth – media weight (extra share of voice), and media weight combined with creative quality (System1 Star Rating)
Your share of voice relative to your market share is a strong predictor of your brand’s growth the following year. Spend above your market size (Extra Share of Voice) and you will grow. Spend below your market size and you will lose market share.
In a study spanning over 4,000 ads, 32 categories, over £10bn in media spend, and over $0.5 trillion in revenue (Look out, Orlando Wood, IPA, 2021) when you add Star Ratings (creative quality) to spend data (media weight), a strong predictor of revenue growth becomes an exceptional one. In fact, the accuracy by which market share growth can be predicted nearly doubles.
Advertising quality acts like a multiplier for your spend. Aim for the highest Star Ratings and you will make your investment in advertising more profitable, giving you greater control over your long-term growth prospects.
Test Your Ad also provides two more key metrics: Spike and Fluency.
Taking these three metrics together, marketers have accurate predictions for growth and actionable improvements to make better ads.
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