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Blinded by science: Brain scans show power of digital out-of-home

A neuroscientific study of emotional responses to outdoor advertising validates the medium's impact and engagement.

May 16, 2013

London-based Ocean Outdoor recently brought hard science to the outdoor and digital out-of-home advertising party, studying the brain's responses to outdoor advertising and validating its impact.

The boutique outdoor media company worked with Neuro-Insight, a market research company that uses unique brain-imaging technology to measure how the brain responds to communications, on a scientific study of outdoor advertising — releasing the study's findings at a recent industry seminar in London.

Ocean Outdoor and Neuro-Insight wanted to do a study that didn't rely on spoken responses to judge emotional responses ("the wow factor") to outdoor advertising, according to Neuro-Insight's Heather Andrew. Spoken responses are filtered through the more rational part of the brain, the left brain, where speech is centered, whereas emotional responses are generated in the right brain, Andrew said.

So Neuro-Insight took a sample of 115 people and drove them around to have a look at poster sites in West London, then took them back to a testing facility where they were fitted with special headsets to monitor the electrical responses in their brains.

"We were picking up how their brains responded as they watched a film of their poster journey to identify what parts of the brain were active and therefore what sort of functions were going on, what sort of emotions they were experiencing, what they were likely to remember," Andrew said. "It tells us that outdoor is very effective, that it stands out very well in the environment in which people see it."

Furthermore, Andrew said, outdoor advertising becomes particularly successful based on the length of the viewer's exposure, on whether the advertising is digital or dynamic versus static, and based on the impressiveness of the location itself.

The research goes beyond some of the theories or hypotheses about why out-of-home and digital out-of-home are successful by validating the study in a quantitative way, according to Andrew. "When we look at brain responses we're getting a very uncluttered response to what people are seeing and how they're reacting to it that gives us a much better understanding not just of what's happening, but why it's happening."

According to Ocean Outdoor, the study's theoretical model, grounded in neuroscience, indicates that out-of-home advertising needs to capture viewers' attention and engage them emotionally to get results. "A strong emotional response drives memory encoding, and this is key for any communication, because memory encoding correlates with subsequent purchase behavior," the company's website says.

The study found that premium poster locations or ad sites generate stronger emotions and are more thoroughly encoded into viewers' memories; and that digital signage sites generate even stronger responses because humans' brains are programmed to respond to changes in their environment. "When sites go digital, great becomes even greater," the website says.

In conclusion, the Ocean Outdoor site says, "the study not only validated the initial model, showing how the Wow factor is critical to the success of iconic outdoor sites, but went beyond it by demonstrating a priming effect that extends beyond initial viewing, creating a positive halo effect across a wider outdoor campaign."

And, according to marketing and PR website BrandRepublic.com at least, the study holds up to additonal scrutiny:

Some past neuroscience studies have flirted with a debased form of pop psychology. But Justin Gibbons, Arena Media's creative director who is an expert on neuroscience in marketing, gives the initiative a clean bill of health.

"I am overwhelmingly positive about it," he says. "It's what I call a sensible use of neuroscience – not over-claimed or overstretched, but good, solid thinking and a well-executed approach. When research chimes with common sense, all the better."

Watch a video interview with Andrew, posted by Ocean Outdoor, below:

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