New platform allows more accurate consumer data collection

A new platform and biometric sensor allows the collection of more scientifically accurate consumer neuroscience data.

There have been a number of innovations that try to use neuroscience to help gauge the opinions and feelings of consumers. These have included ways of allowing communities to participate in marketing and having customers chose the price they want to pay. However, the nascent field of consumer neuroscience has suffered from two major limitations – a lack of credibility, stemming from abuse and the use of voodoo science, and a reliance on traditional, focus-group based methods for gathering data. The use of focus groups means that it can be costly and time-consuming to collect data in real time. Now, Portuguese consumer neuroscience start-up MindProber has developed a platform to allow panel-based automated media testing, free from pseudoscience.

At the heart of MindProber’s system is James One – a newly devised biometric sensor, named after William James, the author of the groundbreaking nineteenth-century psychology work entitled, “What is an Emotion?”. James One is designed to unobtrusively and remotely capture high-quality heart and electrodermal indexes from panel members, recording their reactions to different media content. MindProber distributes the sensor to hundreds of panel members and then captures their biometric and declarative reactions while they watch media content. The device records data on a second-by-second basis, and can be used in real time to collect the physiological and behavioural reactions of hundreds of people to content such as television ads or entertainment programs, as well as analyse their global and second-by-second impact.

MindProber has also created a fully automated, DIY platform that allows users to set up and launch studies on their own, as well as monitor study progression and explore results. The platform allows users to design and run customised studies with hundreds of participants in just a few days. MindProber’s app manages the interaction between panelists and platform, from distributing invitations for studies to survey deployment and compensation information. By creating a science-based platform for collecting and analysing data, MindProber has made it easier for companies to test their content in a more precise and valid manner. The company recently won an award for innovation given jointly by the Market Research Society and the Association for Survey Computing. How could more accurate data on consumer neuroscience help companies to grow their business?