Nielsen has made a major investment into Neurofocus, a research company specialising in neuroscience and marketing. The two companies will develop new forms of measurement and metrics based on the latest advances in neuroscience.

NeuroFocus applies brainwave, eye-tracking and skin conductance measurements to try and track the effectiveness of advertising, branding, packaging, pricing and product design across a range of consumer touchpoints.

Medical electroencephalography (EEG) technology is at the root of the analysis process. Respondents wear a special baseball cap embedded with sensors that track brain responses about 2000 times a second as they interact with advertising or marketing materials. NeuroFocus can determine what parts of the messages they pay attention to; how they emotionally engage with them; and what is actually moved to memory. In addition, NeuroFocus blends eye tracking, skin conductance measurements and other physiological parameters to support the brain wave analysis.