Your face says it all - Analysing consumers' facial emotions

GfK, working in collaboration with partner institutes, is developing a system that precisely records even the smallest muscle movements in people’s faces. Since emotions are mainly expressed through the face, emotions can be recorded spontaneously and in real time using this system.

Given that people’s emotions have an influence on their purchase decisions, the ability to measure emotions has become an increasingly important issue within market research.

Our approach will provide significant opportunities for Tech clients across a range of areas, such as better understanding what a person actually feels when watching an advertisement, how a specific communication impacts on the emotional image of the brand, and which emotions a person experiences when testing a new product. There will inevitably be a whole host of new and varied applications for this technology not yet considered.

So how far have we got? We are currently undertaking a feasibility study of the technology, investigating how the feelings "interest”, "enjoyment” and "disgust” can be read from facial expressions. Once the feasibility study has been completed, we intend to develop this further, to recognize all emotions that are relevant for market research.