In an age where companies are paying millions of dollars to produce and buy airtime for national commercials, such technology can prove invaluable, according to Capita officials. Also, traditional methods of testing advertising copy might require up to four weeks before results are recorded and analyzed, whereas Capita can produce almost immediate results, said Von Gonten, who worked with Capita to develop testing protocols. Although still in its early stages, Capita has already attracted clients such as MTV, Viacom, the Discovery Channel, Unilever and several large pharmaceutical companies. Advertising agencies have also tapped Capita to determine which version of a commercial would most impact the market they are trying to reach. Here's how it works.
Test subjects fitted with a wireless headset take a seat to view a video on a TV screen.
Measurements of each person's brainwaves are recorded and then plotted on a continuous graph that can be synchronized with the video content. That way, a researcher reviewing the tape can instantly see the amount of impact made by each camera shot or line of dialog. Capita also provides analysis and technical support, as well as comparative research that can demonstrate, for example, how a new commercial would stand up to an existing commercial for a competing product. Because some topics are more interesting to viewers than others by nature, the Blue Bell firm has established a baseline for each industry. On a scale of one to 100, mutual fund commercials tend to reap low scores of three to four, said Hunter, so a mutual fund ad scoring 10 or higher would be deemed a huge success.