The Hidden Influence: How Emotions Drive our Choices

Mediaprobe’s database of emotional reactions to televised content offers insights into viewer engagement. MediaProbe CEO Pedro Almeida – a former professor who has spent his career studying decision-making – explains why that matters to advertisers.

Why is understanding emotional effectiveness so important to decision-making?

We know that a great deal of how we make decisions is based on emotional input, rather than cold, rational decisions. In media and advertising, there is incredible value in understanding what leads people to respond emotionally to programs on TV or radio, and how that determines the way they respond to advertisements.

Politics is center stage, so emotion must play a critical role in media coverage and political strategies. What does that mean for advertisers?

It’s no surprise that the news genre has one of our company’s highest emotional impact scores (EIS). Many advertisers shy away from news and political content, and we encourage them to take advantage of the opportunity to be in one of the most highly engaging environments on TV and radio.

What other type of media content typically trigger the greatest emotional reaction?

Live events, whether that is sports, or moments designed around a passionate fan base – like NBC’s Bravocon- offer unique opportunities to boost fan engagement. Event organizers and brands recognize that success goes beyond ticket sales. Success hinges on enhancing the fan experience. Many live event organizers rely on attendees’ feedback and declared satisfaction after the event. However, analyzing audiences’ emotional reactions and emotional engagement on-site in real-time can provide valuable insights to enhance the in-person experience and optimize commercial activations. That’s something we can help them accomplish.

What role does emotion play in advertising effectiveness?

Using proprietary equipment that we invented we can monitor physiological information such as heart rate or sweating while our panelists watch TV or listen to audio broadcasts at home. We’ve been collecting this data for several years and now boast the largest of its kind in the world, with over 250,000 hours of physiological reactions to media. What we’ve found with advertising effectiveness is ad effectiveness is directly related with the ability of the content to provoke an emotional response out of the audience member. The context of the ad also matters a great deal. We have shown that engaging content boosts the emotional impact to the ads placed on that content. In turn, emotional ads are better remembered and have a higher likelihood of creating an accessible impression on consumers at purchasing decision time.

Related Stories

Cynopsis 10/23/25: PBS Is Down for the Count

Thursday October 23, 2025    IN THE NEWS NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is standing by the league’s choice of Puerto Rican Grammy winner Bad Bunny for Super Bowl halftime performer despite backlash. “He’s one of the leading and most popular entertainers in the world,” said Goodell on Wednesday. “That’s what we try to achieve… It’s […]

10/22/25: Cynopsis Jobs

jobs7

Wednesday October 22, 2025 CONVERGENT TV WORLD 2026 Your Brand Belongs on This Stage At Convergent TV World 2026, decision-makers from media, marketing, and technology unite to shape the next era of video. Showcase your thought leadership—become a sponsor today. Registration opens Nov. 3. LEARN MORE    FEATURED JOB NATIONAL SALES MANAGER>> […]

Cynopsis 10/22/25: Apple TV Sets Premiere Date for “Shrinking”

Wednesday October 22, 2025    IN THE NEWS Warner Bros. Discovery announced “a review of strategic alternatives to maximize shareholder value” – aka it is up for sale. WBD said it had recently received “unsolicited interest” from “multiple parties for both the entire company and Warner Bros.” alone. While WBD – which has rejected bids […]

Cynopsis 10/21/25: Food Network Gets Out of “The Kitchen”

Tuesday October 21, 2025    IN THE NEWS Amazon Web Services suffered a major outage on Monday, impacting Amazon, Venmo, Facebook, Google, and some airlines and banks, among many others. While Amazon reported seeing signs of recovery early in the morning, connectivity issues persisted. According to AWS, the problem stemmed from a Domain Name System […]

10/20/25: Cynopsis Media Tech Update

apple Tech

Monday October 20, 2025 Amazon Web Services reported a major outage on Monday morning, taking down websites including Amazon, Disney+, Reddit, and The New York Times, among others. A notice on AWS’ status page said it was experiencing DNS problems with its database service DynamoDB. “There’s no sign that this AWS outage was caused by […]

CynCity

Cynsiders

Instagram