Advertising analytics next frontier: Monitoring your subconscious

A gadget is aiming to monitor consumers' "deep subconscious responses" and brainwaves to gauge the reaction to advertising and other media content.

NeuroFocus on Monday launched the Mynd, a wireless headset that captures brainwave activity across the entire brain. NeuroFocus unveiled the Mynd at the Advertising Research Foundation conference in New York.

The aim for Mynd is to capture real responses from consumers who would participate in home panels. Mynd would send data to a mobile device that would capture reactions.

Among the key details:

• Mynd has dense-array medical grade electroencephalographic (EEG) sensors.
• The device captures brainwave activity across the full cortex and can connect to mobile devices via Bluetooth.
• The sensors are dry so there are no gels to burden consumers.
• Mynd has been in testing and development for three years and will roll out to labs in the U.S., Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America and the Middle East.

Dr. A. K. Pradeep, CEO of NeuroFocus, said Mynd can enable "neuromarketing" to gain "critical knowledge and insights into how consumers perceive their brands, products, packaging, in-store marketing, and advertising at the deep subconscious level in real time."

For advertisers, Mynd holds the Holy Grail---knowing what consumers really think about your marketing instead of just what they tell you. In theory, consumers could wear Mynd at theaters, the home, malls and auditoriums. The data could be streamed to smartphones and tablets.

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com