Brains Are Sold by Stories

From the buzziest TV shows and blockbuster movies to the viral clips that show up on your grandma's phone, our society is flooded with information in the form of moving images. It's no wonder that marketers, from the Mad Men era to the TikTok age, have been trying to serve people ads on screens big and small.

How to make killer videos that capture the hearts and minds of consumers may sound like Advertising 101, but given that people still regularly (and impatiently) reach for the "Skip Ad" button and big-budget marketing campaigns still flop every now and then (remember Nationwide's "Dead Kid" ad?), no one has completely cracked the code on video ads. To help marketers get savvier about making persuasive content, what if we look literally under the hood—inside consumers' heads?

Indeed, that's what many researchers like me are trying to do. In a growing field commonly called "consumer neuroscience" or "neuromarketing," we leverage brain science to unlock puzzles like this.

From Brain Scanning to Mind Reading

My colleagues and I collected brain data from volunteers in the Netherlands and the U.S. who watched TV ads while their heads were being scanned in an MRI machine. Our question was simple: Could we predict how much a consumer likes an ad based on how their brain reacts during the viewing? If so, what is it that the brain is actually doing?

Recently, a statistical technique called "machine learning" has made it possible for computers to churn through the record of neuroscience research to build algorithms that can "decode" brain images. These tools are essentially A.I. bots that can read your brain and deduce the mental processes you're experiencing. We deployed one of those state-of-the-art decoders to tease out what psychological processes occur when people watch ads that they end up liking.

Love at First Sight, or at Least Like Within a Few Seconds

We found that many psychological processes happen even within the first 3-5 seconds when people watch an ad that they end up liking. These include perception, memory, and emotion. That means if we observe strong brain activity associated with these processes just as you start watching the ad, we can already predict you are more likely to like it in the end. First impressions matter, and successful ads are ones that can captivate viewers in the first few seconds.

Tugging Emotional Strings Works—to a Limit

Although we found that emotional brain processes matter when watching ads, they had a limit. When we compare emotion-related brain activity across the entire span of an ad, its predictive effect diminishes towards the end. In other words, strong feelings at the start of the ad might be a good sign, but any emotional response by the time the ad concludes matters less in terms of shaping people's preferences. At the same time, a range of more rational processes like deliberation, impulse control, and analytical thinking turned out to be potent negative indicators of liking at the final moments. So, whereas emotions at the beginning kindle sparks of liking, rational thinking can extinguish them as the ad concludes.

Storytelling is King

Above all, the strongest and most consistent brain signals for best-liked ads are associated with a psychological process called "mentalizing," which is the ability to decipher the thoughts, feelings, and intentions of others. It's what makes human beings social, allowing them to interact and coordinate based on subtle cues. Mentalizing is also key to story comprehension. Why does the princess kiss the frog? And what is the deal with that Jake guy from some insurance company?

Our data show that successful ads are those that can kick the brain's mentalizing function into high gear, especially in the latter part of the ad. But whereas great movies and TV series engage people's love of narrative over many hours, beloved ads can do it within a fraction of a minute. This echoes existing consumer research showing that a compelling and meaningful story is important not only for engendering positive feelings, but also for leveraging them to shift opinions.

As an example of the kinds of ads that would tickle brains in just the right way, consider this year's top-rated Super Bowl ad: a spot for dog food. Images of a young girl and her puppy spark positive emotions in the earliest moments of the ad. But perhaps more importantly, the commercial also tells a poignant story of growth for the pet owner, earning the ad the popular vote.

Our findings not only have clear implications for advertisers and marketers but also hint at how information spreads in society. Communicators often package their messages in compelling tales for good reason. People's love for narratives seems hardwired in the brain.

For Further Reading

Chan, H.-Y., Boksem, M. A. S., Venkatraman, V., Dietvorst, R. C., Scholz, C., Vo, K., Falk, E. B., & Smidts, A. (in press). Neural signals of video advertisement liking: Insights into psychological processes and their temporal dynamics. Journal of Marketing Research. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/00222437231194319

Baek, E. C., Scholz, C., & Falk, E. B. (2020). The neuroscience of persuasion and information propagation: The key role of the mentalizing system. In K. Floyd & R. Weber (Eds.), The Handbook of Communication Science and Biology (pp. 122-133). New York: Routledge.

Hang-Yee Chan is a Lecturer at King's Business School, King's College London. His research interests lie in the intersection between the consumer's brain, behavior, and the market.