Marketers and researchers know the powerful role emotions play in driving consumer behavior but the appropriate methods to measure these emotions is often debated and not well understood. In advance of her session, “The notion of emotion,” at The Quirk’s Event in Brooklyn, N.Y., next month, Quirk’s conducted a Q&A session with Collette Eccleston, senior director, Pragmatic Brain Science Institute at Lieberman Research Worldwide, New York, to discuss MR’s recognition and use of social science research in the form of non-conscious and emotional measurement. Taking a look at the explosion of interest in measuring consumers’ emotional responses, Eccleston points out some of the roadblocks marketing researchers may come across as they incorporate measures of the non-conscious and emotion in their research.
There is a lot of focus on measuring emotion and the non-conscious. Could you help define non-conscious and emotion and what these terms, measurements and methods mean for the marketing research industry? In what ways are these applied?
The current drive toward measurement of the non-conscious and emotion reflects recognition by the MR world of decades of social science research that demonstrates that behavior results from implicit, non-conscious or automatic thinking in addition to rational, conscious thinking. Non-conscious processes and emotions are a part of almost everything we do. Even for categories for which functional considerations are important, and those for which people spend considerable time and effort making their decision, non-conscious processes are very likely playing a role. Traditional survey methods – for example asking respondents to rate brands on a Likert scale – capture conscious processes for the most part. In order to understand and more accurately predict customer behavior, we need to be able to measure not just conscious processes but non-conscious ones as well.
Although non-conscious and emotion are often used interchangeably, they are different. First, conscious and non-conscious exist on a continuum – few things are at either extreme. By non-conscious, we are generally referring to mental processes or behaviors that are fast, easy and somewhat automatic. For example, within milliseconds of seeing the golden arches, most Americans – and arguably most people globally – immediately think of McDonald’s. It may also call to mind French fries: taste, smell, texture. All of this happens quickly, automatically with little effort on our parts.
Emotion, very simply, refers to feelings. While there are a lot of things we might consider feelings, there is widespread agreement that most people experience emotions that vary on valence – i.e., positive versus negative – and arousal – high energy vs. low energy. Emotions can be more or less conscious. If you are walking down a dark street at night and think someone is following you, without a lot of reflection, you have a negative feeling most of us would call fear. But some emotions are more complicated and require us to think about and label the feelings we are experiencing. For example, those McDonald’s fries may bring up childhood memories that make us happy but may also make us feel guilty as we contemplate our New Year’s resolutions.
How can research that attempts to measure less conscious aspects of thought and behavior complement other forms of research?
We think traditional research and non-conscious and emotional measurement are complementary. They reflect different aspects of the consumer’s thought and decision-making process. To get a holistic view of behavior, both types of measures are needed. Rather than pitting these measures against each other, it’s useful to think about how they may apply at different points in the consumer’s journey and use them accordingly. As an example, we can imagine consumers in the process of buying a car. Consumers have gut reactions to car brands – think BMW, Honda, Porsche – based on years of seeing ads, who drives the car, the country it’s made in and so on. Those brand impressions are likely to shape the consideration set. To understand those brand impressions, non-conscious measures will be helpful. But consumers will likely engage in a more thoughtful process considering factors such as gas mileage, whether the car maintains its value over time, etc. Because these factors require conscious reflection and effort to think about, the measure used in research should match that process. A more traditional measure, such as a Likert scale, would be suitable for understanding how consumers think about brands on those factors.
What are some common mistakes that researchers make when incorporating measures of the non-conscious and/or emotion in their research? How can these be avoided?
We sometimes see that these measures are expected to be the silver bullet, i.e., that they will be especially sensitive and will be able to pick up very subtle effects or that they will reveal things that we can’t get evidence for using other measures. So it’s really important to have clear objectives with regard to what we are looking for and expecting to find and then decide which measure is best. Sometimes, a traditional measure is best.
What methodology do you find most useful when researching emotions and consumer behavior?
Related to the previous (question), figuring out what measure is best depends on what we’re trying to do. This is certainly true of measuring emotion. For example, if you are evaluating an ad, and there is a moment that is intended to evoke a basic emotion such as anger, then facial coding can be a great tool for identifying those immediate but likely momentary changes in feelings. On the other hand, if the emotion you’re trying to get at is more complicated – guilt, for example – facial coding won’t capture this. In this case, you may actually ask people about the emotions they are feeling in a fairly direct way.
Has technology, such as in the form of non-conscious or biometric/neuro research methods, made it easier to measure or explore emotions?
Certainly! While we recognize that the measurement of the non-conscious and emotion is important, these measurement techniques also need to be pragmatic. It’s just not reasonable to expect that in order to use these methods, one must be willing to go to a central location or have very limited sample sizes. So to the extent we can capture response times, do facial coding, eye-tracking, voice capture, etc., in the context of online surveys and on mobile devices, we are able to incorporate these methods into a wide variety of research.
Why has there been such an explosion in the awareness of and interest in measuring consumers’ emotional responses to ads/brands/products?
As I alluded to in the beginning, research highlighting the importance of the non-conscious and emotional in academic literature has been around for decades. The fact that it is now gaining importance in market research is due to a couple of things. First, there have been a few books that have done a great job of translating the academic work and making it accessible for a lay audience: Blink [Malcolm Gladwell], Thinking Fast and Slow [Daniel Kahneman] and Freakonomics [Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt]. Second, I think academics are under more pressure than was historically the case to make their work relevant. While there are some downsides to this, one benefit is that more academic work gets mentioned in The New York Times, on podcasts, etc. And a broader audience is now exposed to this work and can think about ways to apply it. The third is advances in technology. We are able to do much more than we were able to do in the past, which has increased interest.
It seems like the advent of social media outlets and user-generated comments has made consumers more comfortable with expressing their views and emotions on a range of topics, from their own lives to news stories or companies or the products and services they use. Do you agree?
I agree. Somewhat. Social media has increased people’s ability to voice their opinions anonymously and without consequence. From social psychology we know that when people are de-individuated, whether that’s because they’re in a crowd or they are operating behind the veil of the internet, they do things they ordinarily might not. It’s much easier to express your harsh opinion when you don’t have to say it to someone’s face.
What do you think is the biggest roadblock for people to incorporate social psychology into marketing research?
At this point, I think most people are aware of many of the new methods available to market researchers. However, familiarity is still not great. Many people are unsure of what each measure is supposed to do, when to use it and how to interpret results. And importantly, how to make the results actionable. To be able to get the most out of this research, it’s helpful and important to work with those who have knowledge and expertise with these tools.
Eccleston's session will take place on Tuesday, Feb. 23 at 9:15 a.m.