Every company wishes that they could test their adverts and marketing materials before serving them up to the public. Focus groups and market research are notoriously expensive, but Hungarian startup Synetiq is offering an alternative: Crowdsourced neuromarketing.
Using a global network of testers – each with an electroencephalogram (EEG) neuroheadset – the startup can track and record the emotional response to a commercial, movie, speech or piece of music that the client is working on. By tracking their neural activity, Synetiq can identify exactly when testers are feeling engaged, excited, attentive or frustrated. This information is then combined with eye-tracking data, also picked up from the tester, to identify any potential flaws with the materials and give the client some actionable advice to improve it.
Synetiq has some competition: InnerScope Research, Buyology and Sands Research also specialize in neuromarketing. None of them are as open or user-friendly though, which gives Synetiq an advantage. A couple of hours after submitting their materials, clients can log-in to a browser-based dashboard called Mindr and review Synetiq’s findings.
Brands and advertising agencies can pay for Mindr on a per-use basis, or sign up to a monthly subscription if they’re developing eligible content on a regular basis. Using the platform, clients can freely scrub back and forth through their submitted materials and filter the feedback from testers by age, gender and location. The UI is well-designed and minimalistic, so that anyone representing the client can analyze the data and take action. Testers, meanwhile, are sent a headset and then paid for each piece of marketing or content that they survey at home.
Synetiq is piloting Mindr at the moment with a small number of global advertising firms, but will be opening it up to a larger pool of clients in the coming months.
After graduating from Startup Sauna and pitching at the Slush Conference earlier this month, the Hungarian startup raised €40,000 ($54,000) investment, of which €30,000 from Tekes, the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation, and €10,000 from newly launched Startup Foundation (Startup-säätiö). Synetiq was also a runner-up in the startup competition at the How to Web conference this week. The team now and plans to open up a new office in Silicon Valley early next year.
