New York, NY and Berkeley, CA - February 7, 2008 - The Nielsen Company today announced that it has made a strategic investment in NeuroFocus, an innovative firm that specializes in applying brainwave research to advertising, programming and messaging. The two companies will work together in an alliance to develop new forms of measurement and metrics based on the latest advances in neuroscience. Based in Berkeley, California, NeuroFocus applies brainwave, eye-tracking and skin conductance measurements to track the effectiveness of advertising, branding, packaging, pricing and product design across a broad range of consumer touchpoints. Leveraging marketing, engineering and neuroscience expertise from UC Berkeley, Harvard and MIT, the company measures - on a millisecond-by-millisecond basis - attention, engagement and memory retention.
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I've got to be honest, this newest development from Nielsen kind of creeps me out. As a research geek, I am completely in favor of new, in-depth research, but I believe there is a line, and Nielsen has crossed it.
With the exception of the internet, television is the highest research advertising media available. On a local level, I can tell viewing down to the quarter hour in any demo every single day. On a national level, the movement is toward minute by minute ratings. The agencies already contact our station on a daily basis if a single quarter hour does not post up to expectations. Can you imagine if we had to endeavor to meet the demands of neuroscience research? In the future, will Mr. Advertiser calls up and demand a make good if our audience glances away from his commercial for a split second?
Big Brother is not only watching, he is wired directly into your brain. It's all a bit too Orwellian for me.
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