Recently, Mars Incorporated has been experimenting with a brand new technology that incorporates conventional digital measurement methods and focuses on viewers emotions as they watch their advertisements.
Agile Artistic Experience (ACE) has already evaluated more than 450 items of content since its launch in July 2020. Mars hopes to surpass 1,000 items by 2021, a spokesperson said.
Micro-movements of the face are analyzed with this AI technology, which uses computer vision and machine learning to identify expressions of happiness, surprise, confusion, disgust, engagement, and how and when individuals move their heads.
The AI technology, which is consent-based for privacy reasons, can identify 150 total different feelings. Patilinet explained that it is not a facial recognition system considering that it cannot distinguish people faces. Instead, it tracks the motion of eyes and lips, codifies them as feelings, e.g. “happy” or “unhappy,” and then combines those signs to paint a picture of how people feel about a video. Mars then uses these triggers to decide whether to continue, edit, or cancel the marketing campaign in question.
Quicker turnaround
To run ACE, Mars is dependent on quite a few external partners. In-lab assessments managed by Nielsen, and cellular measurements managed by Realeyes. The initiative also involves Google and Medicom are offering benchmarks for solutions. Patilinet crew then turns exterior results into a proprietary Mars quantity, which is decoded, turned into a deck, and shared internally to determine which advertisements are most effective.
Mars Wrigley unveiled its Accelerating Impulse Moments (AIM) platform in July for driving impulse purchases at retailers using data and testing.
By using dynamic or automated assessments, Patentlinet hopes to enable ACE to produce real-time suggestions. Mars business is shifting more to e-commerce and direct-to-consumer channels, resulting in quicker turnarounds. While online gross sales are relatively small in some categories, they are likely to grow as COVID-19 influence buying behaviour. Petcare, in particular, has seen explosive e-commerce growth over the pandemic. Mars Petcare hired Jessica Hauff as its first General Supervisor of e-commerce in April and appointed Travis Reaves as its Vice President of technique and progress transformation.
Creating resonance
Likewise, traditional media codes – such as anthemic television spots – that made brands like M&Ms and Skittles into cultural icons have gone out of style. A proliferation of ad-free streaming options leads to a rapid rise in twine-cutting, while client loyalty to longer commercials has waned.
A few years ago, Mars was among the originators of the six-second television ad and continued to experiment with the nascent video media that acknowledges the necessity to provide an immediate hook for viewers. While ironing out these techniques appears to be a work in progress, ACE could prove essential to ensuring the message reaches its intended recipients.
Patilinet further stated, “It is possible to write longer stories that evoke feelings, but we know people skip these types of stories. They do not seem to be very satisfied with 30 seconds of advertising. We are trying to solve that problem as our greatest challenge.”
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