Emotion Tracking at the cinema

Switch off everyday life, turn the emotions on! Cinema achieves this switch like no other medium. Okay, we already knew that. But now we have it in black and white.

We now even know exactly why we are so emotionally receptive while sitting in a cinema seat: it’s simply WITHIN us. In other words, it is embedded in our subconscious. The research institute september Strategie & Forschung investigates this connection and what it has to do with advertising live and in color directly at the cinema. Want to know more? Then click into the latest episode of our digital magazine KINO. MEIN ORT.

Our innovation expert Franzi Knoefel presents the latest research results, wires herself up, pushes the measurement curve to its limits, and takes our “Inner Child” to the most beautiful playground of entertainment: the cinema! In addition to our Weischer colleague and Head of Research Christian Tingler, we welcome a triple dose of know-how from september in the cinema: Head of Media & Analytics Cornelia Krebs, Head of Emotion Research & Partner Dr. Daniel Schneider, and Research Consultant Ethiopia Obrock.

So, get ready for an emotional experience – enjoy watching and exploring with us!

More information about the study

Advertising on the big screen emotionally engages the audience much more intensely than TV or online video. This is the result of a study by the market research institute september Strategie & Forschung. To find out which emotions cinema advertising triggers in the audience, forty adult test subjects were invited to regular cinema screenings.

There, they were equipped with inconspicuous measuring devices in the style of fitness trackers. These recorded physiological reactions such as heart rate, pulse, skin resistance, but also the facial expressions of the audience. In total, twenty different data streams were recorded for each person. The results were then supplemented with in-depth psychological interviews and compared with generic reference values for TV and online from september’s database.

The study on the emotional intensity of cinema advertising complements a study from 2018. At that time, Weischer.Cinema used eye-tracking glasses to examine gaze patterns during the pre-program. These results also demonstrated the advantages of cinema spots. At the cinema, 95 percent of all advertising seconds were attentively viewed. In contrast, on TV, only 55 percent, and with online videos, just 25 percent.