A Case Study in Neuromarketing: Analysis of the Influence of Music on Advertising Effectivenes through Eye-Tracking, Facial Emotion and GSR

Music plays an important role in advertising. It exerts strong influence on the cognitive processes of attention and on the emotional processes of evaluation and, subsequently, in the attributes of the product. The goal of this work was to investigate these mechanisms using eye-tracking, facial expression and galvanic skin response (GSR).Nineteen university women were exposed to the same TV ad of a perfume in our Laboratory (https://neurolabcenter.com/). Nine of them were randomly assigned to the music version and ten to the silent version. During viewing, the visual areas of interest, the fixation time, the facial emotions and the GSR were recorded. Before and after viewing the subjects completed a questionnaire. Results: 1) The commercial with music caused a GSR level higher than without music. The GSR evaluates the degree of arousal (emotion)., 2) The facial expression indicated that the variable "enjoy" and "engagement" were significantly higher in the version with music. The positive valence (liking) presented higher values in the musical version, 3) However, the evaluation of the variable "attention", measured through facial expression, did not show differences between the groups. There were also no differences in the heat maps of areas of interest. 4) The attributes evaluation of the product, measured with the pre-post questionnaire, showed greater increases after exposure to the musical version, but only in specific product’s attributes, such as "power" but not on other attributes, such as "status". These results are interpreted within the framework of the recent theories of advertising and music (Oakes, 2007).