Influencer marketing agency Whalar and neuro-marketing agency Neuro-Insight have published the world’s first neuroscience study on influencers. The report looks at the comparisons between the emotions evoked by influencer adverts compared with TV, Facebook and YouTube adverts, and the priming effect of influencer adverts, by answering the question, why does influencer work?  

Whalar believes that the power of influencer lies in its evoking intense emotions and creating strong memories. They used gold standard emotions and memory testing technique, Steady State Topography, which measures consumers’ brain waves while interacting with content. It generates a unique set of metrics, of which emotions valence and intensity, and memory encoding, are vital.
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The power of influencer marketing

The results of the neuroscience study highlight the power of influencer marketing. When compared to TV adverts, influencer is 277% more emotionally intense, and 87% more memorable. Influencer is 28% more emotionally intense and 73% more memorable when compared to YouTube adverts. The same applies to Facebook, with influencer ads 64% more emotionally intense, and 182% more memorable.In addition, influencer priming significantly improves responses to TV, Facebook, and YouTube adverts. “The priming effect of influencer on TV, Facebook and YouTube is huge. Without first being primed by influencer, responses to TV, Facebook and YouTube ads were generally negative, and after being primed by influencer they were positive. This is a massive shift, indicative that influencer should play a pivotal role in campaign strategy and media mix,” said Ian Forrester, SVP, research and analytics at Whalar.“Influencer is growing incredibly quickly, and Whalar recognised the need to not only understand what is driving this and how it can benefit brands, but also the huge merit in looking beyond conscious responses. We’re thrilled to have partnered with Whalar on such ground-breaking work,’’ said Shazia Ginai, CEO of Neuro-Insight.

Whalar is a headline sponsor at the Influencer Marketing Show. If you want to meet them at the show in October, buy your tickets here.

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