Application of frontal EEG asymmetry to advertising research

The aim of the study was to identify frontal cortex activation in reaction to TV advertisements. We compared three consecutive creative executions of the world-famous Sony Bravia ads (“Balls”, “Paints”, and “Play-Doh”). We were looking for left hemispheric dominance, which according to the adopted theoretical model, indicated approach reactions of respondents to incoming stimulation. We have found that dominant reactions were present only in response to one of the tested ads – “Balls”. Target group respondents reacted in such way to emotional part of the ad, as well as to its informational part (including product-benefit, product, and brand exposure scenes). No similar pattern was found for the remaining two ads. It yields a conclusion that frontal asymmetry measure may be a diagnostic tool in examining the potential of advertisements to generate approach related tendencies. We believe that methodologies based on measuring brain waves activity would soon significantly enrich marketing research portfolio and help marketers to go beyond verbal declarations of their consumers.