Friday, March 30, 2018

Honda at the SXSW

At the SXSW meeting, two researchers, Bina and Marci, talked about a large study they had done for Honda. The goal: compare how well TV commercials worked on prospective buyers vs. Honda’s own experts.

To test this, they assembled two panels: regular people who were shopping for cars, and executives from Honda dealerships.
The test subjects all watched an hour of TV comedy shows including both Honda and other commercials, just like you would at home... except attached to machines measuring brain activity, eye movement, and so on. This let the researchers see exactly what part of the TV screen drew their eyes and which specific words caught their attention.
The results surprised everyone.
The words and images Honda executives liked had almost zero correlation to those that attracted potential customers. These “experts” homed in on what they knew: the car’s features and financing terms. Consumers, on the other hand, made much more emotional connections.

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