How Neuromarketing Impacts Creative
An overview of how neuromarketing can guide the creation and selection of subconciously resonant imagery for your next campaign.
When you give your design team a creative brief- what exactly does it say?
There are typically some instructions on things like:
The goal of the campaign
Messaging points that need to be conveyed
Maybe some fun creative constraints (aka compliance)
How the creative should make people think and feel is hinted at
At the end of the day, it's not a true playbook to help the creative get the reaction you’ve asked them to get. It relies on intuition and personal biases. “Just be creative”- isn't good enough in today's data enriched world.
But what if you knew exactly what to put into your creative? It's hard. It would be like going to an art gallery and being able to pick the right painting.
Personality science provides a more informed lens to approach this task. Overall there are some trends in image preference that have been proven to delight:
People generally prefer colder colors over warm colors
Higher levels of image saturation vs. low levels of saturation.
Tend to favor symmetrical compositions
Low to intermediate image complexity.
(Baurely & Liu, 2088; Jacobsen & Hofel, 2002)
Using advancements from the above research and data modeling capabilities, scientists have built a number of models focusing on traits like color, lighting, scene type, level of detail (to name a few) that offer up a probabilistic approach to delivering a more appealing image.
Datta, Joshi, Li, & Wang, 2006; Ciesielski, Barile, & Trist, 2013; Datta et al., 2006; Dhar, Ordonez, & Berg, 2011; Khosla, Das Sarma, & Hamid, 2014; Machajdik & Hanbury, 2010; Murray, Marchesotti, & Perronnin, 2012; Redi & Povoa, 2013
Models have proven you can drive image preferences out of demographic groupings like gender and age as well. Fun fact, men have been shown to prefer saturated colors more than women. (Palmer & Schloss, 2011)
These tools are great but they quickly hit their limit as you’re hoping to personalize your campaigns. Obviously, not every woman wants a low saturation image. Especially if people generally prefer a more saturated image. This same thinking has driven how we've treated marketing personas.
Personality shows some promise for image preference. Early experiments have shown that extraversion correlates with image preferences that score highly for contrasts in hue and saturation (textural properties) as well as images that showed people and faces (content properties).
The fact that extroverts like pictures of people shouldn't surprise you, but the early research lacked the ability to make it actionable because we didn't have the tools to target those individuals.
Personality is key to breaking down this image personalization barrier. Sandra Matz Ph.D., a cognitive social scientist at Columbia University, proved in some research this year that you could provide more specific image preference targeting by utilizing personality. Below we dive into just some of her findings.
For starters, by targeting these traits you can increase predictable image appeal between 31% and 56%.
Generally, people in this study preferred stimulating images that:
were highly saturated
were associated with emotions of dominance or arousal.
showed more natural scenes with fewer people over artificial scenes with a group of people
Positive correlation with natural scenery
Negative correlation with the number of people
Taking almost 40K image ratings from ~750 participants, Matz was able to provide us with a rubric to understand image preference as it relates to personality traits. We will cover her findings across the Big Five, then break down how this can be utilized within our more actionable Sorter Segments.
Big 5 Image Preference
Openness
Overall: Open-minded people favor images with no people and images with rather cold colors over images with warm colors and images that feature people and faces.
Color Preferences: Blue and black, as well as brightness wavelets
Color Dislikes: Brown, orange, and pink
Content Dislikes: Areas of the body and number of people
Other Notes: Findings are in line with the previously studied links between openness and art (specifically abstract art).
Conscientiousness
Overall: Highly conscientious people prefer images that capture their attention with positive and warm colors and wider textures, such as wide and homogeneous backgrounds or buildings with windows. The negative correlation with natural imagery additionally proposes that highly conscientious people favor non-natural images.
Color Preferences: Red
Color Dislikes: Black
Dislike Natural Scenery
Texture Preferences: Coarseness
Preferences for "Rule of Thirds" in imagery
Content Preferences: At least one person.
Extraversion
Overall: Extroverted people prefer simple images and images that feature people. The correlations with low depth of field, image busyness, and natural scenery suggest that this preference could be particularly pronounced for portraits. The links between extraversion and people-related features are in line with extraverts’ general tendency to favor social situations and the company of other people (McCrae & John, 1992).
The correlations with computer graphics features, textures and busyness further suggest that extraverts might favor non-natural, processed (maybe even “photoshopped”) images. A potential explanation for this relationship is that extroverts attach greater importance to how one looks (Kvalem, von Soest, Roald, & Skolleborg, 2006). The flawless nature of processed images appears to be egosyntonic for extraverts- it falls in line with an acceptable view of themselves.
Color Preference: Pink
Prefer Simpler Images
Hue Preference: Low Hue
Saturation Preference: High Saturation
Brightness Preference: High Brightness
Prefer images with a strong depth of field
Texture Preferences: Tamura Coarseness and Directionality
Content Preferences: Number of people, people related features, computer graphics
Introverts
Like detail and edges (texture qualities)
Natural Imagery
Enjoyed image busy-ness more than other segments
Agreeableness
Overview: Highly agreeable people prefer images with warm colors and images with people. This fits with the general description of the Agreeableness trait which characterizes agreeable people as warm and caring and highlights their preference for close and harmonious relationships with other people (McCrae & John, 1992).
Prefer color variance
Color Preferences: Brown, green, pink, purple, red, and yellow
Texture Preference: Coarseness
Content Preference: Face pose angle, number of people, computer graphic features.
Color Dislikes: Black,
Dislike: Natural Scenery
Neuroticism and Introversion
Overview: People high in Neuroticism prefer natural images and images with no people. This preference for calm and minimally stimulating scenes without people is in line with the general attributes of Neuroticism, including envy, loneliness, anxiety, and fear (McCrae & John, 1992).
Preference for higher image size to its aspect ratio
Content Preference: Natural Scenery and Cats
Color Dislike: brown
Texture Dislike: Tamura Coarseness
Sorter Segment Image Guide
Let’s translate this image preference information for our Four Sorter Segments. Below is a high-level guide that you'll see reflected in your Sorter Creative Briefs as a Sorter customer.
Overall:
We should always strive to pull emotions from our audience. Dominance and arousal are the most effective emotional triggers.
This is because each speaks to the two main families of personality traits. Those with more pronounced stability traits are attracted to the feeling of dominance because they seek control of their surroundings as they look to protect and maintain stability. Meanwhile, those dominant in plasticity traits are attracted to the feeling of arousal because they are likely to seek excitement and change.
Don’t be "stock". The artificial feel will trigger the sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight) and your message will receive unneeded scrutiny.
Mover
Goals of Imagery
Drive the individual
Keep them focused on the task
Content
Product/Service
On own or in use (the key is the focus on product)
Focus less on natural scenery
Color
Rich saturations
Use of colors should not create busy visual
Try to avoid cooler hues
Increase the brightness
Texture
Keep it clean (reduce busyness)
Use coarse textures (coffee beans > sand)
Ex. If you’re selling rice- zoom in to show the texture vs. a finer textured image from a zoom out
Clean divides
Offer directionality
Guide viewers eyes to CTA
Motivator
Goals
Inspire the individual
Get them to abstract what is possible (day dream)
Content
People are optional
People speak to the extraverted + agreeableness nature of this segment.
Does not necessarily speak to their openness trait which is dominant for this segment
- Aspirational imagery settings
- Answer what someone might accomplish
Abstractions work well
Natural Scenery is effective here
Color
High Brightness
Rich Saturations work well
Blues and Blacks will play well
Texture
Freedom to play with structure, coarseness, directionality because of higher openness score
Collaborator
Goal
Establish security they seek from others
Create a human connection with the brand
Content
People, Faces, Pets
Not direct eye contact. Ensure the user is an observer
Community focused activity
Color
Warm colors
Clean divides
Texture
Coarse textures
- Clean divides
Thinker
Goal
Inspire confidence in the quality
Err on the side of clarity
What is the product and how does it work
Concrete details
Content
Go with fewer people
Potentially one person working on the task at hand
Focus on the product
Technical aspects of the product > the product in action
The individual is already thinking about the situations where it will be used
They want assurance they can trust the product
Color
High saturation
Rich blues and reds
Texture
Texture is important for thinkers.
They want more organization within the image
Coarse textures work well
The rule of thirds is well received
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