Neuro Study Predicts Viral Success

OTOInsights: "One to One Interactive and Innerscope Research had 25 individuals observe 11 viral videos that were uploaded to NewGrounds.com. Our hypothesis was that neurological measures of media engagement could accurately predict the ratings that the NewGrounds online community assigned to viral content.

While observing the 11 viral videos, each participant wore Innerscope's state-of-the-art smart clothing which translated noninvasive measures of brain activity into an easy to interpret, time-locked index of emotional engagement. One to One Interactive developed multiple regression models to determine if a video’s rank score on the NewGrounds website could be predicted from the results of the study. The results of the analysis revealed that the reviewer assigned score (1-10) on the New Grounds website could be predicted with an accuracy of 76.8%."

-- thank you, Jeremi

ShotCode Tattoo

A post long overdue. Responding to an earlier AdverLab post on QR code uses, Dennis from ShotCode pointed in the direction of a brave soul who has decided to go clickable and tattooed the said code on her neck. Melissa, the tattoo owner, says, "It didn't point to exactly the right url (something about Sprite, in Spanish..) but i'm still really pleased with it."

From the ShotCode site: "The circular sequence of black and white blocks represents a url, any url you want, for example to your products website or a point of sale. The ShotCode reader understands this code and connects the end users mobile phone to your location in three clicks or less!"

And here's what the code looks like on an outdoor ad (more pics here):

Egaroo's Banner Search

Here's a new collection of web banners - Egaroo - that dubs itself "The Ultimate Free Web Banner Search Engine". Not sure about the "ultimate" part, but it's worth checking out how much creativity is crammed into the 468x60 box (the only banner format the site apparently collects). Then, of course, there's the excellent Banner Blog and Banner Ad Museum, Banner Report (itself reported on in Wired).

Hyundai's "Locate Three Strangers" Contest

Hyundai is running this Mash+Seek contest where they pick 16 people, split them in four groups, and then have the contestants locate the three other people in their teams. The only lead is a quarter of a face, although Hyundai is promising more tips. "The first team of four to find one another wins a new Elantra each."

This is a very cool way to do "consumer-generated content" because guess what? The challenge is not only about locating someone, it is also about making yourself visible, somehow. Blogs? Postings on Craigslist? Google AdWords? I'd do a typical chain letter asking everyone to forward it on.

Skype Makes Pay-by-Minute Calls Possible

Ars Technica: "Skype Prime, the new beta service allows customers to charge incoming callers by the minute or assess a one-time fee." It's integrated with PayPal and it's a pay-for-play model for audio content distribution. You could do live consulting, but you also can do recordings (podcasts, interviews, speeches) that other people would pay to hear. It's like internet radio meeting jukebox.

Study 2: Subliminal Messages May Work

Remember the recent story about slot machines in Canada that flashed barely noticeable jackpot images? (Konami, the maker, denied allegations saying it was a tech glitch.)

Now, 2GB writes that "Scientists at the University College London (UCL) have found the first physiological evidence that invisible subliminal images do attract the brain's attention on a subconscious level." (via Neuromarketing). There was one other recent study with similar conclusions.

Earlier:
Subliminal Spam
Study: Subliminal Advertising May Actually Work
ABC Rejects KFC Ad As Subliminal
Dream Machine and Subliminal Ads?
(Subliminal) One-Frame Ad

Advertising on Loading Screens

Why aren't there any ads or other info snippets on loading screens of Flash-heavy websites? It's a huge missed opportunity since people actually look at these screens so that they don't miss the a-ha! moment, but are utterly bored and would be grateful for some entertainment. For an inspiration, play some video games. The Sims and Sim City franchises keep people smiling with cute pseudo-scientific nonsense such as the blurb below informing players that the game is "mitigating time-stream discontinuities".


image source

It's a lot like that business case legend about a company that had just built a major building realized their elevators were intolerably slow and installed mirrors to cut the perceived wait time.

Television Usability

The issue of usability of the increasingly interactive TV ads has come up before (two years ago here), and yesterday Ball State Uni's Michael Bloxham wrote a great post on MediaPost's blog:

"I have a sneaking suspicion that the world of TV advertising will not be waiting to embrace the cold, hard discipline of usability as readily at it will ultimately embrace the creative potential of interactivity."

I've been watching lots of DVDs lately after getting a Blockbuster subscription, and the DVD interfaces are a total chaos. There, it's like the Web of 1998 -- no conventions, plenty of animated glamor, lengthy splash screens. Try turning the subtitles on and you find that the option resides under randomly-named menu names, and whether you selection is active is anyone's guess since there's no color or animation feedback. The very name -- English captions for hearing-impaired -- is puzzling. What about people who can hear well but simply prefer subtitles?

Earlier:
Designing Usable Conferences
Usability in Movies
Writing for RSS Usability

Offtopic: Quote of the Week

BoingBoing posted a screenshot last week of the 'Receipt' step of settling a lawsuit from the RIAA's p2plawsuits.com site. The "looking forward to future business together" post scriptum is lovely. And here's a great comment someone left at Digg:

"We have to remember that this kind of litigiousness from the RIAA is a good thing. The more enemies the RIAA makes the better. They are manufacturing a generation who thinks the music industry are nothing more than a fraudulent bunch of thugs. And while that is the truth, they could be choosing a course of action that sees them embrace their fans. Its one thing to get ripped off on a $17 CD. It's another to get ripped off by an entity that does nothing but fear monger. The latter instills a deep hatred."

Social Ad Creation at Zooppa

Zooppa, meet Vitrue. Vitrue, meet Zooppa. And AdCandy. And V-Cam. People create ads for participating brands, than rate them, then the author behind the top-rated one gets paid.

While I'm at it, why do "consumer-generated" ads always have to be videos? Consider the amount of effort, skill and resources required to create each of these types of media:

• Spoken word
• Written word
• Drawn images
• Photography
• Recorded sound
• Animation
• Machinima
• Recorded video
• Computer game

I've seen great campaigns that involve photography -- by Nikon and more recently by RedBull, one by Chrysler around machinima, and very few that let people play with sounds (Snakes on the Plane?), but most of the efforts are in videos that require the highest amount of skill and resources and that often produce fairly, well, amateur results. Is this the case of an old agency TV-oriented thinking trying to adapt? How about having your customers design an advergame for you, then?

Earlier:
The Flip Side of Consumer-Generated Advertising
Vitrue to Mediate Consumer-Generated Ads