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Measuring creative performance

From gut feeling to quantitative results - How eyetracking can be used as an integral research tool in the creative process

Think EyeTracking uses state of the art eye tracking technology.  With methodology honed by P&G and software developed in house, we use eyetracking in the UK to combine quantitative and qualitative research approaches by interrogating both conscious and subconscious minds. This delivers actionable results within 24 hours of receiving creatives.

As a baby, your eyes were the first thing you learned how to control. Just in the same way that driving a car becomes a subconscious process after it is learned, control of your eyes became a subconscious process before you can remember anything.

The fact that most eye movements are subconscious is used by Think Eyetracking to our client’s advantage by measuring which creatives get attention and if that initial attention is transferred into the successful engagement with the key message.

1. Challenges faced – Objectively measuring creativity

Creativity is often the best way of achieving advertising that is distinctive and different and therefore likely to be noticed.

The route to creative excellence has to date been based more on intuition and gut feeling than rigorous scientific pre-testing; however recent advances in eyetracking methodology seek to change that forever.
Whilst eyetracking has been around for over 100 years, only recently has it evolved into something fundamental to the creative process.

Think Eyetracking, was officially launched in 2008, and spun from leading user experience consultancy Bunnyfoot Ltd, set up as a separate entity providing offline eyetracking services to meet demand from clients. Think specialises in testing consumer’s behavioural responses to offline media including TV, print, outdoor and packaging.

Incubated within Bunnyfoot, Think has spent the last five years refining how eyetracking can be used as an implicit measurement technique, that when combined with traditional research methods gives a rich and rounded understanding of people’s conscious and subconscious responses to advertisements, communications and brands.

From gut feeling to quantitative results
This is a story that happens in board rooms all over the World: The creative agency comes up with several concepts for a campaign and the client is presented with concept boards whilst the Creative Director explains the motivation and goals for each one. He then sits down and looks thoughtful whilst waiting until the most senior person on the client side speaks up and says which one they prefer. There is some discussion and the route is thus chosen.

Think Eyetracking’s approach to pre-testing aims to bring some measurable objectivity to the process and get the creative team to the optimisation stage faster.

2. What we did

Eyetracking gives insight into people’s cognition

We as humans live much of our lives in the subconscious; for example, how many times have you changed gear when driving and not thought about doing it? Therefore it would be useful to have an implicit research tool to identify and quantitatively measure this type of subconscious behaviour.

Our sight is driven by direct impulses and it’s our primary way of observing the world around us and evaluating things. Most of the movements our eyes make (saccades) are involuntary, and controlled by the subconscious part of our brain.

Eyetracking offers the ability to measure and visualise these spontaneous and emotional responses to communication. In short, eyetracking allows us to see what’s going on in people’s heads – when they are engaged or confused with something, or simply making a decision. Eyetracking measures which elements grab and keep people’s attention – therefore it is an invaluable tool for understanding the effectiveness of advertising. 
How has this innovative research approach contributed to advertising creativity?

Before the meeting described earlier happens, Think Eyetracking carry out at least 30 to 100 face to face eye tracked interviews and deliver a report within 24 hours of receiving the creatives. Think Eyetracking’s unique research methodology; Post Experience Eyetracking Protocol (PEEP) allows for natural subconscious behaviour to occur during research sessions, followed by a qualitative interview to interrogate the conscious mind.
The board meeting proceeds as it would but this time it has the benefit of quantitative and qualitative research, interrogating the conscious and subconscious minds to help inform the decision on which route to go with.

One such example of how this new approach pioneered by Think Eyetracking has added to the creative process is the case study for British Gas through Ogilvy.

Objective: Optimise effectiveness of service email to new customers
Method: 120 BG customers tested with eyetracking & questionnaire

Eyetracking was initially used to indicate which of three design concepts worked best.

Interestingly, the concept that came out on top had not been the client’s or the agency’s favourite. The initial results were then used to re-test; further optimising the template from the second round of analysis before putting it in the field with a robust testing strategy to improve it further.

“We estimate that even if we had picked the right design in the first place, it would have taken eight to twelve months of testing to get to the version that we put in the field on day one.”
Skip Fidura, email marketing guru at Ogilvy

By incorporating eyetracking into the pre-test stage, the service email was optimised faster and subsequent communications were more effective not only from a financial and environmental point of view, but more importantly, from the customer’s point of view.

This is of considerable value to the creative process as the creative team can sometimes find it hard to get viability to a situation because they are too ‘close’ to the work; what might seem obvious to the creative team and client in the board room might not always translate into the real world where people make subconscious decisions about if an ad’s worth their time to engage with or not and to disengage with one that doesn’t make sense.

3. What we achieved

Eyetracking research during the pre-test creative process has made a fundamental and integral contribution to understanding and evaluating advertising campaigns, and further proof of this can be seen in our recent partnership with OgilvyOne. The partnership gives Ogilvy’s creative teams and clients actionable eyetracking research findings with a 24 hour turn around.

“This is tremendous news. In truth, I think many of the models and methods which underpin the advertising industry are so naive, tired and outmoded I would welcome a system of analysis based on Tarot readings as at least bringing a little variety into our lives. But to see a scientific approach of this kind is especially welcome, and in the agency of David Ogilvy, doubly so.”
Rory Sutherland Vice Chairman of Ogilvy Group

Our unique approach makes market research affordable and fast. The way in which the innovative technology is used is crucial to the outcome, and our methodology enables creative people to optimise their designs during early stages of the creative process without treading on their creative toes. Think Eyetracking uses eyetracking in conjunction with traditional research methods as a complimentary tool to the researcher and creative team.  Actionable results and fast turnaround within 24 hours – Eyetracking is now an integral and fundamental part of the creative process at Ogilvy.

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