Affectiva is humanizing technology — building a world where technology understands people the way that we understand one another. Built on deep learning, computer vision and massive amounts of real-world data, Affectiva’s technology can detect nuanced human emotions, complex cognitive states, activities, interactions and objects people use.
In Media Analytics, our technology measures viewers' unbiased emotional responses by analyzing facial movements detected by a webcam. With consent, our tech captures participants' engagement as they watch content, such as an ad or movie trailer. All the while, Affectiva’s AI runs in the background analyzing their emotional reactions.
Part of refining and improving our technology is expanding our data collection. The more data we are able to collect across genders, ages, and ethnicities, the more robust our repository will be, and thus the more accurate our classifiers are across different demographics and use cases. With the help of our friends and family, we’re able to expedite this process and produce more precise and unbiased results.
Our first ad test Jeep’s Wrangler
Haven’t seen the ad yet? Check it out!
We kicked off our first Friends & Family ad test with a Jeep ad announcing the Electrified Wrangler 4XE, a new environmentally friendly model. The minute long ad takes you on an “earth odyssey” exploring an array of different landscapes, and featuring numerous animals stomping, singing and yelling in tune to the music.
Participants were asked to watch the ad and then fill out a brief survey, exploring viewer feelings around Jeep as a brand, the environment and proclivity to becoming an electric vehicle (EV) owner. The results capture participant’s moment-by-moment facial expressions, and when paired with the survey responses, provide valuable insights around participant engagement relative to age, geography, intention to buy and more.
Because cars are such a significant, emotion-filled purchase, coupled with current questions around consumers’ willingness to switch to EV, we wanted to see how the Jeep Wrangler, an iconic brand with a strong legacy, was using emotion to effectively transition and persuade potential buyers.
The Results
It was apparent that Jeep successfully created a positive association between the ad and the brand. The advertisement effectively evoked positive emotional responses from the animals ‘singing’ alongside the iconic Wrangler footage. We can also note spikes in valence, or net positivity (or negativity), as the Jeep is passing by the singing animals, with the highest lift when the Wrangler reappears emblematically drifting through the sand dunes.
An intriguing point of analysis is elevated valence, particularly amongst viewers who are not yet ready to buy an electric vehicle, versus those actively looking to purchase one (see dashboard image above). The ad therefore has considerable emotive power amongst those ‘further away’ from making an active purchase decision to buy an electric vehicle.
Overall we see a fun, light-hearted and positive emotional connection has been made by Jeep in this case, but there’s still work to be done to fully persuade viewers to make the switch to electric.
A Big “Thank You” to our Friends & Family!
We are very grateful to our Friends & Family AI Advancement Group who joined this panel in an effort to support Affectiva and help improve our technology. Taking part in this group allows us to test our technology dynamically and quickly enable our AI technology to be more efficient and agile. We hope that our initial ad test provided a deeper understanding of how our technology functions, and demonstrates the impact that each participant can have.
Interested in joining Affectiva’s Friends & Family AI Advancement Group? Sign up here!
