A&E Television Networks Commissions NeuroLab From NeuroFocus

NEW YORK, May 18 /PRNewswire/ -- It all started with an "Intervention."

When the programming executives and research managers at A&E Television Networks decided that they wanted a deeper understanding of how viewers responded to advertising in one of their hit shows, they discovered neurological testing. Shortly afterwards, they tasked NeuroFocus to apply this "21st century marketing science" to plumb the depths of consumers' subconscious reactions to the program content of "Intervention" and the advertising contained within this series, highly-rated by audiences and critics alike.

"Priming has been one of the television and advertising industries' most compelling but elusive issues for some time," said Mel Berning, Executive Vice President, Ad Sales for AETN. "Understanding the effects that program content has on viewers' response to advertising--and to an extent, vice versa--is a persistent question that everyone wants answered, definitively. But conventional research methods are hard-pressed to get at the heart of that issue. Neurological testing, on the other hand, delved right to the source--the subconscious--and delivered the answers. That breakthrough was the catalyst for our decision to commission a NeuroLab from NeuroFocus."

As the world's leading neuromarketing company, NeuroFocus builds and operates stand-alone neurological testing laboratories for a wide range of clients in the U.S. and abroad. These NeuroLabs are fully staffed with neuroscientists, neurophysiologists, market researchers, and consultants, all dedicated to a single client's operations. NeuroLabs measure consumers' brainwave activity, and NeuroFocus combines that data with eye tracking and biometrics to arrive at the most comprehensive, accurate, and actionable research results available in the marketplace.

Because measurements are made at the subconscious level, using highly sophisticated sensors that capture brainwave activity at 2,000 times a second, neurological testing can evaluate the effectiveness of everything from brands, products, packaging, advertising, the in-store environment, and entertainment content.

"A&E Television Networks is the first cable and satellite TV company to have this cutting edge capability in-house, and we see tremendous opportunities to use it not only for our own research, but to help our advertising partners gain competitive advantages for themselves," said Michael Greco, Executive Vice President for Research at AETN. "The possibilities for advanced understanding of how viewers truly respond to our programming, our promotions, and the advertising running in our schedule are practically limitless. Capturing insights at the subconscious level makes NeuroFocus a unique and critical tool in our tool kit. Plus, the results are detailed and designed to be actionable very quickly and efficiently."

With the "Intervention" study, NeuroFocus' research proved conclusively that programming with strongly-emotional content actually enhanced the effectiveness of commercials run within that programming. Spots representing advertisers in six different categories were placed within an episode of that program, and the same spots were placed in identical pods within an episode of a popular dramatic series on another network. Viewers' subconscious responses were captured and analyzed to determine the priming effects of the programs' content upon that advertising. The results revealed that the advertising which aired in "Intervention" ranked as more effective at generating viewers' emotional engagement in each of the six categories compared to the identical advertising which ran in the episode of the drama from another network.

"Our studies for A&E Television Networks are a perfect example of the power of neurological testing to tease out knowledge and insights that conventional methodologies simply cannot access," said Dr. A. K. Pradeep, Chief Executive Officer of NeuroFocus. "Neuroscience reveals that the most critical components for program and advertising success lie below the conscious level of the mind. The NeuroMetrics we measure include attention, emotional engagement, and memory retention, and from those we derive Market Performance Indicators of viewing and purchase intent, awareness, and novelty. The subconscious is where those elements are formed, and where they reside. With their NeuroLab, our partners at AETN now have the ability to access and measure them on a daily basis, and apply those findings to create even more powerful programming."

About A&E Television Networks

A&E Television Networks, LLC (AETN) is an award-winning, global media content company offering consumers a diverse communications environment ranging from television networks to websites, to home videos/DVDs to gaming and educational software. AETN is comprised of A&E Network®, Lifetime, History™, Lifetime Movie Network, Bio™, History International™, History en espanol™, Crime & Investigation Network™, Military History™, Lifetime Real Women, A&E IndieFilms®, AETN International, AETN Digital and AETN Consumer Products.  AETN channels and branded programming reach more than 250 million households in over 140 countries.  AETN is a joint venture of Disney-ABC Television Group, Hearst Corporation and NBC Universal.

About NeuroFocus

The world's leading neuromarketing firm, NeuroFocus (http://neurofocus.com) brings advanced neuroscience knowledge and expertise to the worlds of branding, product development and packaging, advertising, in-store marketing, and entertainment. NeuroFocus clients include Fortune 100 companies across dozens of categories, including automotive, consumer packaged goods, food and beverage, financial services, Internet, pharmaceutical, retail, and many more sectors. Entertainment category clients include major companies in the broadcast and cable television and motion picture industries.

Headquartered in the U.S. and operating globally through offices and NeuroLabs in the UK and Europe, the Asia/Pacific region, Latin America, and the Middle East, the company leverages Nobel Prize caliber and Doctorate-level credentials in neuroscience and marketing from the University of California at Berkeley, MIT, Harvard, Oxford, Columbia University, and other leading institutions, combined with executive business management and consulting experience. The Nielsen Company is a strategic investor in NeuroFocus.

SOURCE NeuroFocus Inc.