In a study published today titled The Science of Engagement, its in-house insight team, in partnership with facial coding experts CrowdEmotion, has combined traditional research metrics with facial coding to understand how brands can use content-led marketing to effectively engage with consumers.

BBC Advertising plans to offer this insight to premium clients as part of its campaign reporting to ensure they understand the full impact content-led marketing can have on consumers and the value of it to their brands.

According to the research - the first of its kind by a publisher - well executed and clearly labelled content-led marketing is considered trusted and persuasive in quality environments, and has a powerful emotional impact for the brands involved. Exposure to content-led marketing can significantly improve consumers’ positivity towards the advertising brands (with a +77% increase in explicit positivity between pre and post exposure). In addition, the study measured* the second-by-second facial movements of people as they experienced the content to measure true engagement and the respondents’ implicit reaction. The results showed that exposure can also lead to a 14% increase in subconscious positivity.

Richard Pattinson, SVP Content, BBC Advertising and Head of BBC StoryWorks, said: “In a time when advertisers’ are increasing their spending on content-led marketing, it is important that they also feel confident in its effectiveness, and understand the significant positive impact this kind of content has on their brand. We believe that this study will enhance advertisers’ understanding and confidence in these campaigns, and in the value of high-quality content marketing delivered in premium environments.”

The month-long study was conducted in October 2015, following the insight that while traditional performance metrics offered a partial story of campaign success, combining them with the measurement of both conscious and subconscious consumer reaction to branded content offered a more rounded view of the effectiveness of content-led marketing campaigns.

On the decision to explore emotional recognition techniques, Pattinson commented: “BBC StoryWorks has used the innovative facial coding methods offered by CrowdEmotion to prove that when made transparent and properly executed, brands can use content-marketing to heighten emotional engagement and enhance brand perceptions with consumers.”

The key findings from the BBC StoryWorks study have shown five general principles when it comes to content marketing:

  • Be transparent and educate your users;
  • Match the editorial quality;
  • Be clear what your content is trying to achieve and how emotional engagement can support that;
  • Integrating the brand within the narrative will work harder for the brand;
  • Placing in a premium environment will give your content credibility and allow it to flourish.

*Methodology
 
The research included a sample of 5153 digital consumers of English language international news across six key markets: Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, USA, Canada and Germany. It focused around three core measurements - an online quantitative survey, facial coding and Implicit Response Testing.

For the unconscious measurement, facial movements were recorded on a second by second basis and then coded into six possible emotions: sadness, puzzlement, happiness, fear, rejection, surprise.

To understand why they were experiencing those emotions, a panel of 20 media experts from executives from media agencies, key global advertisers and academia from around the world helped provide context to the facial coding results. The experts viewed the content tested in the research and rated them for the presence of a number of key factors – such as fun and easy going, thought-provoking, cerebral etc. These results were merged with the emotional response to help understand why consumers responded in a certain way.

Launched in June 2015, BBC StoryWorks is a global content marketing team within BBC Advertising that brings together the boldness and innovative qualities of a creative studio with the agility, responsiveness and timeliness of the newsroom.

For more information, visit the website. Alternatively, connect with them on Twitter using the #BBCStoryWorks hashtag.