The Science
Learn about our novel approach, grounded in contemporary neuroscience, and what what sets us apart from other companies
Measuring audience engagement
Engaging with your audience is the foundation of effective communication but what exactly constitutes “engagement”? At its core, it is the ability to draw an audience in, hold its attention, and create an emotional connection, allowing the content to persuade and influence. In other words, both cognitive and emotional processes are at work influencing behaviour.
Measuring such a dynamic system is challenging because audience engagement has both explicit and implicit components. Organisations that rely solely on self-report such as asking people to reflect on their experience, not only get biased data, they also miss out on critical information. That’s why we use a combination of implicit and explicit tools to reveal a richer, more accurate picture. Specifically we use biometric sensors to measure electrodermal activity (EDA) combined with behavioural experiments to measure explicit narrative engagement.
The science underneath the skin
Biometric sensors measure skin conductivity by running a small current between two electrodes touching the skin. Dry skin resists the current but the signal increases in proportion to sweat secretion due to arousal (whether emotional, cognitive, or physical). As a result, EDA (also known as galvanic skin response) serves as an indirect measure of autonomic nervous system arousal, a key implicit component of audience engagement.
Your autonomic nervous system (ANS) regulates involuntary body functions, including heartbeat, blood flow, breathing, and digestion. It operates automatically and unconsciously, ensuring that the body can adapt and respond to changes in its environment.
Narratives that evoke an emotional response increase activity in a part of your brain called the amygdala which in turn activates the sympathetic nervous system. Specifically, it signals what is known as the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA) to increase activity in response to the emotion. The HPA then causes adrenaline to be released into the blood, essentially preparing the body to take action. It increases heart rate, dilates pupils, triggers sweat gland activity, mobilizes energy, releases cortisol (the so-called stress hormone) and diverts blood away from non-essential functions like digestion.
Critically this is not an all-or-nothing response. Instead, it is proportional to the strength of the emotional reaction. As a result, the physiology of an audience member mirrors the narrative arc of the creative and this can be quantitatively read out at the wrist in real time. By calculating the physiological synchrony of time series data from all audience members, we can calculate both an overall engagement measure and a second-by-second measure that reveals audience engagement highs and lows throughout the creative.