Case study: How facial analysis was used to evaluate the emotional impact of a disease promotion campaign

The solution
We conducted 20-minute online quantitative surveys with 250 physicians in EU5 to capture their current prescribing behaviour, reactions to the disease awareness campaign (as a whole and section by section) and the potential impact that this would have on their future prescribing. A subset of the physicians completed a qualitative follow-up interview in order to further explore their reactions and identify how to improve the campaign.

In order to gain greater insight into the physicians’ emotional reactions to the campaign, we incorporated a facial recognition element into the online survey. The software monitored facial expressions as they watched the campaign and translated these into emotional reactions. Analysis of the data collected by the software indicated that there was a strong emotional response to the campaign. These could be compared with databases of norms and tracked over the length of the video to identify which aspects evoked different emotions. 

The outputs
We provided our client with an integrated report, combining the findings from both the quantitative and qualitative interviews and the facial analysis software. We were able to clearly demonstrate the impact that the disease awareness campaign was likely to have on physicians’ future prescribing behaviour and using the data generated by the facial analysis software, were able to show which specific aspects of the campaign were most emotive for physicians. The facial analysis software provided an added dimension of insight, enabling the client to understand not only the rational, but also the emotional impact and value of their campaign, to help to convince the local operating companies of the value of adopting the disease awareness campaign.