Every year when I visit the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco I usually expect to discover something new, but generally nothing blows me away.

This year I was fascinated by the keynote session presented by Rosalind Pickard from Affectiva who is building technologies to measure emotion in web video. The technology is not nearly as great as its potential, but this MIT-scientists-founded-startup goal is planning to build it to perfection.

Originally this emotion measurement technology was meant to help patients with autism spectrum and others with communication challenges. Stanford University School of Medicine is using it to help veterans cope with post-traumatic stress disorders. Regardless, the founders now see the potential introducing their technology to marketing research, product testing and development.

Currently the technology can be used either via web camera or by using a special wireless sensor. Parker described the wireless sensor as a devise that measures emotional arousal via skin conductance, a form of activity that grows higher during states such as excitement, attention or anxiety and lower during states such as boredom or relaxation.

Right now the web camera can only analyze a facial expression associated with happiness. The software tracks when the user smiles, and then you can see your detailed Smile Track once viewing is complete. You can already sense how this can be applied to marketing research. As this technology develops we’ll be not only able to track when someone smiles but also we’ll know when they are unhappy, annoyed, bored or angry.

Affectiva's Q Sensor logs and monitors stress levels

One of the examples during the session showed a girl who was getting ready for her anticipated recital performance. The stress during performing the recital was evidently noticeable, then it was significantly reduced and then the stress level went up again when she was bullied by her classmates. This was one of the few examples showing a wide variety of usage potential and I am sure there is going to be much more.

Elementary student's stress measure chart during recital performance

The next demonstration showed how market researchers can take advantage of this technology by applying the emotional reaction of an audience for a commercial. If you want to get a quick feel on how this technology works you can use a webcam on your computer, click on this link and see how much you smile while watching a commercial. You can see my smile pattern when I watched the Volkswagen Darth Vader ad. It still put a smile on my face even though I’ve seen it at least 10 times.

Facial expression "Smile Track" chart

As this technology evolves I can see how it can be used not only for a reaction on a promotional video or a movie but also for copy testing, online image ads and even radio spots. Obviously it will be important to follow privacy laws and get an agreement from the user before the technology is being used. Going forward I think we all can see many benefits of emotion measurement technology and from the marketer point of view it will become a key tool during pre-campaign testing which could now be done across significantly broader audience versus limited focus groups. Nobody wants to spend millions of their marketing dollars on a campaign that is set for failure. Emotion measurement technology has a potential to make us all smile, even when we are watching a commercial.

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