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Dan Hill
November 7, 2017
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Five weeks ago, WBEB/Philadelphia Chairman Jerry Lee used his Power Player feature to launch his Engaging Commercials initiative, in which radio spots are analyzed and improved by using the knowledge developed by Sensory Logic through facial coding. Sensory Logic Founder Dan Hill worked with Lee to develop a webinar to pass along the insight to participating radio stations and management; here he offers more specifics on facial coding and discusses how it can work not only to improve radio commercials, but to measure whether a morning show is effectively engaging.
What were you doing before Sensory Logic and what made you decide to enter this field?
I have a PhD in English Lit, but I entered this field after reading about the breakthroughs in brain science regarding intuitive and emotional decision making. I found that fascinating enough to start exploring this field based on an article I read in a Cornell University publication, American Demographics. I wasn't sure about what business I could start, but I knew companies were flying blind on the importance of emotions in business. I thought that, yes, it could be a business opportunity, but I also just thought the field itself was utterly fascinating.
How long did it take until you were certain that facial coding works? Was there a certain breakthrough project?
Paul Ekman is the leading expert on facial coding. I met him now almost two decades ago at his university office in San Francisco and learned the ropes from documents he provided. As to when I knew I had a viable business, my first client was Target: should they sell the Dayton's department store that was the company's origins? We said, yes; young people weren't very emotionally attached to the format. Next up was a project for U-Haul. They had consumer signage options for dealerships that showed the vehicles and the price, but the vehicles aren't sports cars and the price often changes, of course. Through facial coding, we found that what fascinated their customers was the open road. Even if they used U-Haul to just move their junk to the next city, they responded more to signage where you use U-Haul to explore America on your own great adventure. They connected to that approach far more, emotionally.
JP Morgan once said, "A man makes decisions for two reasons -- the good reason and the real reason." I use facial coding help my clients find the latter.
How did you overcome clients' initial apprehensions and suspicions about Sensory Logic's viability?
Out of the box, I found it imperative to sell this new tool in person. People who met me realized I had the enthusiasm and commitment required. I had solid credentials, explained the process carefully and how it could make a difference for their business. I did my homework on not just my product, but on their company. They realized that my character was to look out for their best interests.
Back in the day, an Alka Seltzer "Spicy Meatball" was loved by the audience, but didn't sell the product. How do you ensure that a commercial that entertains and engages will actually sell the advertiser's product or service?
I remember that commercial very well. It illustrates the risk of what's been called the visual vampire syndrome: sometime the visuals in the ad suck up all the attention. It's true of any gimmick if merely a gimmick. The clients are not comedians; they're not in business to sell a joke, but to sell a product. You need to make sure that visually and emotionally, there's relevancy back to the offer.
We look at four levels of happiness with facial coding. We make sure we're getting happiness at an appropriate level, and if there's engagement and emotional activity when the product is being referenced in the script - especially at the close ... the last impression ... those things help translate to sales.
It's also possible to ask questions that go beyond exposure, by using facial coding to find out whether they're more likely to consider the product. They'll almost always tell you, yes, because that's the safe thing to do. Facial coding measures them emotionally when they give that answer. Are you getting lip-service responses or something you can take to the bank?
Could you expound further on "visual vampires?"
Another way to put it is "emotional vampire" ... it's usually a gimmick in the script; in Alka Seltzer's case, a humorous incident in the script that doesn't mention the product is just a gimmick. We tested a radio spot for a cold medicine where one of the characters sneezed a lot; some of that can go a long way, but the person doing it had a pretty outrageous personality who was sneezing for all sorts of crazy reasons to enliven the spot. That kind of extreme illustration of "the social dangers of sneezing" is rarely going to be relevant to most people's lives. So a commercial that started out relevant (head colds) tipped into being a "vampire."
Exactly how does facial coding work?
It can read the face by looking at 44 different muscles in the face, and over 20 ways that facial muscle movement activity translates into one or more of seven core emotions: happiness, surprise, anger, sadness, fear, disgust and contempt. We know when the activity occurs and it relation to what moment in the script. Facial coding therefore captures when they care and don't care: when they're intrigued, or where there's a lack of engagement or motivation (what I refer to as "bald spots").
We also look for speedbumps such as contempt, which involves a lack of trust or respect; or anger, too, because it suggest a confused listener or somebody feeling resistance to the way you're trying to sell them (usually too loud, too fast, too repetitive). We recommend clients stay away from speedbump risks, and look for happiness related to the product and not irrelevant humor.
Does facial coding work equally as well for radio commercials as it does for TV commercials?
Yes, because facial coding needs work from observation or video. Typically we have people use webcams, so they can send in a video file from their smartphones. We need those video files to be able to see the effect of the radio spot second by second -- just like TV. We typically write the programming code to control webcams remotely, so we can experience the users' reaction; that's why it works fine for radio. Those reactions capture every second of the voiceover, the sound effects and the theatre-of-the-mind in every second of the commercial.
But a listener's attention to a radio commercial is more passive and less focused while driving a car; couldn't that impact facial coding measurements?
I look for bald spots -- points in commercials where nobody is reacting. If they're in a car or an environment where there's a lot of distraction, obviously then any existing bald spots from testing will likely get amplified in such a setting. The positive inverse of a bald spot is when you get generate emotional mojo, lots of emotive response in quick succession.
Can the success of an engaging commercial be harmed if it follows a poorly made spot in a radio stopset?
We do test batches of spots very routinely, and up to now, we haven't see an order bias -- unless the commercial is too similar to something else that bombed, which invites the listener to check out emotionally. But outside of that, no. One of neat things about emotional reactions, opposed to a conscious attitude, is in how emotions react to stimulus. If the script and execution are lively and pertinent, the spot will stand on its own merits, no matter what comes before or after it. On the other hand, in real life if a station plays long strings of poorly conceived and executed radio spots, certainly that will dampen the listeners' expectations. Then, we have to hope our work on behalf of a given client promoting itself in such an environment becomes "the diamond in the rough" that positively stands out.
A few weeks ago in this space, Jerry Lee talked about working with you to help radio create and air more engaging commercials. Care to add anything to that?
The reality of radio is that there is some national testing of spots and significant campaigns, but they don't tend to test a lot of local radio commercials. Because of that cost reality, we worked to develop a webinar, which Jerry funded, to provide a positive orientation on the importance of engaging commercials. Then we'll put their copywriting creative under review. This service for scripts comes at a much lower cost and can be done a lot quicker, a process that makes more sense for radio. That has been our approach, and Jerry has put together an innovative offer that radio stations and clients should contact him about.
Jerry also noted that facial coding can also work in measuring the success of morning shows. Agree? And how would it work?
I actually did some consulting work on a station in Toronto, where I was given parts of various morning shows. I got a visual of the hosts, who were filmed while delivering the show. I was looking at their facial expressions, Even though listeners were exposed the show on an audio basis, I was still looking for them be engaged. Anyone who's in a job for too long can suffer burnout. Someone once said that people are "until workers" -- until 5p, until the next job, until they retire, and so forth. First and foremost, we're looking to see that Elvis hadn't left the building and they're still emotionally involved in the show.
People in media need to have a bit of an edge, just not too much of one. People like to be provoked but not beyond a point where it's grating. We look for a mix of emotions, both positive and negative. I can also say, in particular, that we've done work looking at the presidential debates, both in the U.S. and in Mexico, and found that candidates tend to fare better when they express a hybrid of emotions; for instance, what I call the 'golden blend' of happiness and muted anger.
Have you ever conducted facial coding on morning show listeners to judge the effectiveness of the show's benchmarks and bits?
No, but we have coded the target market for how they responded to a station's video spots (whether aired on TV or on the station's website), as well as options for a new tagline.
Where do you see the future of Sensory Logic and facial coding?
In the end, your clients tell you what business you're in. I can't speculate on what that will be in the future. Ultimately, facial coding will have to get more refined. Apple, Facebook and Microsoft are all at work automating facial coding, but it's not nearly accurate enough -- especially when a person's mouth is moving during a speech. Ultimately, we want to provide a customized, higher quality service because in five to 10 years, facial coding will become ubiquitous, thanks to advancements in technology.
My next step is to go deeper to explore and better understand people's emotional response to individual personalities. When you asked questions about on-air personalities earlier, that's interesting because I'm finishing a book on famous faces. I facial coded 173 celebrities over the last four generations, starting with the silent era, then going through Humphrey Bogart, Marilyn Monroe, Muhammad Ali, Jeff Bezos and many, many others.
We are in the business of gauging what's engaging, be it commercials or personalities, be they on-air, on the TV screen or on a presidential podium - and not just gauge it in real time, but understand it in the context of the medium. The key is to find better ways to tap into to the audience's collective emotional DNA, to foster a stronger, more successful connection between the parties involved.
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