Why Emerging Methods Hold the Keys to Brand Success

Human behavior change has accelerated rapidly over the past two years, the COVID-19 pandemic forcing adaptation, rewiring brains, and forming new habits around everything from food and entertainment to shopping and travel. While some of this may be temporary, lasting only as the impact of the pandemic, others have become deep-rooted or at least have become the building blocks for a new normal.

For marketers, this is likely the most disruptive period since the birth of e-commerce – a once-in-a-generation disordering that will have an impact which we cannot yet comprehend. Thus, there’s a critical need to understand what’s happening and what it may mean for a business, products and marketing.

In my view, those that arise successfully are going to more deeply embrace “emerging methods” as a necessary complement to those that are more “established.” Traditional methods, such as surveys and questionnaires have value in providing quick snapshots but are subject to significant biases. Algorithm-based big data are great at seeing what choices are made but lack the underlying understanding of why decisions were made.

More than ever, marketers must break through this rational layer to understand emotional context: what is the reasoning behind these stated and actual choices. What was someone feeling at every moment along the path toward a decision – and what were the true influencers of those decisions. Emerging methods like eye-tracking, facial coding and biometrics capture these nonconscious emotional responses – including attention, emotion and intensity. Given that it’s estimated that more than 95% of brain processing occurs below conscious awareness, the importance of these insights cannot be understated.

The more of a person’s physiology you can monitor, the deeper insights you can gather and the better you can understand the emotions behind behavior and decision-making. At iMotions, we call that multimodal: the power and ability to leverage multiple nonconscious technologies like eye-tracking, facial expression analysis, EEG and GSR, to get a comprehensive look at human behavior.

It’s always inspiring to see the adoption of individual technologies grow. But as emerging methodologies solidify their place within the industry and new ones (even those that may not yet exist yet) materialize, we must continue to use this as our north star: no single technology has a monopoly on the truth. Individual technologies have the power to reveal certain aspects of human behavior on their own; together they are much more powerful.