Emotional Engagement

The buzz around Pinterest has been around for a while now but what are the attraction and the purpose of the new social network?

Mashable’s beginner’s guide is a good place to start for an overview; however with most things the best way is to just to try it out. I’ve been a member for less than a week and have played around and wondered about what to add? Suddenly, an hour had past and my ‘boards’ began to fill up; but how and why?

The first emotional hook is the intrigue in applying for an invitation to the ’exclusive’ group; a little buzz being accepted and then the realisation that you have an empty profile -plus a potential audience of over 11 million (The Realtime Report)

Secondly, Pinterest helps by suggesting titles for your boards. I like to call them “mood boards”. It’s nice to have a starting point. Pinterest will even sign you up automatically to ‘follow’ people; a manageable number that you can check out an ‘unfollow’ if they don’t suit you. So, what will your boards be filled with?

Personally, I think about what interests me as time is short and I have so much to ‘pin’. Over time it will develop and grow, so why am I bothering? It’s like a record of my life in a non threatening way. I have confidence in my interests, there’s nothing to hide, and it’s enjoyable to share and see what others are interested in – all in pictures!

A recent gripe is that a number of websites I’ve wanted to pin either don’t have large enough images to show or any images to show at all, which is a shame. It makes the search to pin an interest take much longer. Interestingly, ecommerce sites have seen a huge increase in their revenue. It’s a genius way of promoting products by using the most reliable source – word of mouth!

The user experience of Pinterest is excellent. The ease of use and the fact that it’s hugely engaging makes it something that we will be using more and more in the future. -Organaising events,-sharing interesting landmarks,-various collections and even videos; Pinterests’ options are endless and exciting.

There’s so much more to say, but really interested in your views. Please comment below.

The following 8 minute video with Key Account Director, Sven Krause, explains some of the key benefits of measuring emotional engagement and the research techniques used to capture unconcious reactions of consumers. Ultimately increase customer engagement and experience and lead to increased revenue.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1ZaDZo0z1I&feature=player_embedded

Emotional Engagement Measurement™ (EEM™ ) is a ground breaking research approach that provides insights into the unconscious motivations of consumers when they are engaged in learning about, purchasing or using products and services. It’s taken three years of studying electroencephalography (EEG), adding traditional face-to-face and questionnaire research and honing our studies on eyetracking to develop our new service.

It’s an exciting development for businesses and brands; there’s a need to understand how customers feel towards products and services and even though Foviance has traditionally used research techniques to reveal conscious reactions, we are now able to unlock unconscious reactions with analysis of hidden reactions and impressions from customers using Emotional Engagement Measurement™.  This technique can boost revenues for our clients because they will understand on a greater level customers’ unconscious behaviours; it’s not just a case of knowing that experiences need to be optimised, but how to create better customer experiences and heighten engagement.

The importance that emotions play in a decision making process really cannot be ignored. By combining developed research techniques we can provide measurements in several key areas including; excitement, engagement, boredom and irritation (which provides a full picture of unconscious responses and reactions). It’s exciting for us to be able to provide the physical response to experiences, an area that was previously missing.

We have already witnessed great results for clear stimuli such as imagery, layouts, colours, email campaigns and more, which reveals entirely new levels of customer understanding.

To find out more about EEM™ and Emotional Engagement, please refer to our dedicated website

Could understanding what triggers emotional engagement in your customers make the difference for your brand?

London, UK, 12 October, 2011 – Today, a new website was launched on Emotional Engagement, uncovering a ground-breaking technology that enables businesses’ to understand if they have engaged with their customers on an emotional level.

Foviance, the expert in customer experience, worked with SensoMotoric Instruments (SMI), a world leader in computer vision applications and developed their Emotional Engagement Measurement™ (EEM™)  service, which is a fresh approach to customer experience research. The Emotional Engagement Measurement™ service combines a variety of Foviance’s user research methods, eye tracking data collected with SMI solutions and brain data on emotional states collected with a specialised neuroheadset.
Measuring emotional engagement has always been a challenge for customer experience professionals because emotions are largely driven by unconscious processes.

Electroencephalography (EEG) data provides a view on how the brain responds to different experiences, revealing unconscious emotional states. Foviance’s expert consultants are able to use this brain data to offer clients actionable insights on how to increase the effectiveness of marketing and improve customer experience.
In a pilot project with Foviance UK, SMI developed a special interface to integrate the Emotive EPOC neuroheadset with the SMI Experiment Suite 360 ° eye tracking software and the SMI RED eye tracking device, which successfully delivered a service to analyse home, product and landing pages, as well as banner and email content.

By adding eye tracking to EEM™, each emotional reaction can be objectively associated with the focus of visual attention at a certain time. Or in plain words: “In an EEM™ study, we get deeper knowledge on the process of information processing because we know where someone was looking when the brain reacted in a certain way”.

Foviance is really excited to have this resource available, which will become the knowledge base of emotional engagement worldwide.

Explore the Emotional Engagement website

About Foviance 
Foviance is a leading customer experience consultancy that helps some of the world’s best known global brands to deliver better customer experiences that drive improvements in customer satisfaction for increased customer loyalty and better financial performance.

About SMI
SensoMotoric Instruments (SMI) is a world leader in dedicated computer vision applications, developing and marketing eye & gaze tracking systems and OEM solutions for a wide range of applications.

CA Calls for European Businesses to Wake Up to ‘Web Stress’ or Risk Losing Customers and Sales

• World’s first* neurological experiment into poor online customer experience proves existence of ‘web stress’
• Brain wave analysis indicates that consumers need to concentrate 50% more than normal when using a badly performing website
• Two most stressful points of the online sales cycle are search and checkout

* Based on extensive desk research in February 2010. Read more…

To explore ‘web stress’, CA partnered with Foviance to see if application performance had an impact on buying habits and consumer behaviour online.

Using an EEG (Electroencephalography) cap and sophisticated neurological and physiological testing equipment, volunteers were wired up during the study and had their brain wave activity monitored. Everyday tasks online such as finding and buying items were tested by the volunteers.

The results revealed that search and checkout were the two most stressful points of everyday processes carried out online, resulting in the volunteers exhibiting a heightened level of ‘web stress’. This type of stress results in more than three quarters of customers abandoning websites before they have completed the task that drove them to the site in the first place. To download the whitepaper a valid e-mail address is required, however Foviance will not contact you unless you specifically request it.

Does emotional attachment to a brand prevail over the online customer experience for Internet-based companies? Read more…

Foviance’s CEO, Paul Blunden is running a session at the MarketingWeekLive! -  Online Marketing Event on Wednesday 1st July with Sean Gilchrist of Barclays.

The session will be held at 9.30am at the Online Marketing event called “Barclays Online Banking – Putting the customer at the heart of it”

Hot topic : Electroencephalography (EEG), Download Foviance’s white paper on Emotional Engagement Research