• by P.J. Bednarski , Staff Writer @pjbtweet, September 24, 2015

Unruly, the social video/ad tech firm that’s big into sharing and also a lot richer now that it’s been acquired by News Corp. is launching its Future Video Lab right there on West 25th Street in New York (and also in London).

Its simple job is helping clients create ads people would rather watch and share than avoid and swear about.

Well, good luck with that. Seriously. I went to the Lab a little while ago and got a brief lesson in all the new data mining Unruly is aiming at customers so it can aim ads we can stand.

With this angle, Unruly becomes one of the first ad tech firms out there that has taken an environment full of lemons (namely the ad blockers) and attempt to make it a glass of lemonade by presenting tools that will stop them.

To fortify the feeling the online ad biz is up against the wall, Unruly says its research reveals 90% of consumers would consider using an ad blocker; 52% are sick of seeing the same ad over and over and 59% think ads that “follow them around” are “creepy.” The same 59% just think there are too many ads.

I’m also impressed by this: 81% say they put regularly mute advertising. (Generally, though this is just considered gospel everywhere it seems, most of us hate pre-roll.)

Unruly has taped 3,2000 online viewers to form a pretty good idea of what they want and don’t. And it regularly sits people down and shows them online ads and charts what they’re thinking--emphasizing emotional and empathetic reactions.

It uses eye trackers too, and more. When I came to the lab, two guys in lab coats, Hirak Parikh and Davide Baldo from NeuroMarketing Labs, hooked me up for an EEG test. They put a skull cap on me with 32 prods going to all parts of my sizable brain and attached those wires to a computer. They charted my brain response to a British public service spot that emphasized empowering women of all sizes and shapes to get active.

Unruly is keen on measuring our emotional connections, which change quite rapidly, I’ve seen, and affect not only whether I’ll “buy” the message but also if I will attach myself to the brand. It’s pretty interesting, even if you end up looking goony while your mind is probed.

Unruly’s apparent ability to suss out what works and what doesn’t would seem to be go across advertising lines and right into content, and perhaps that’s part of what made News Corp. feel comfortable plunking down as much as $176 million for it.

Unruly Co-CEO and co-founder Sarah Wood, quoted on ClickZ, said: “Now that brands are creating and distributing so much video content, the video lab identifies and quantifies the key drivers for consumer engagement: brands can see the most effective emotional triggers and social motivations by market, by demographic, and by brand category.

"Using social, emotional and behavioral data in the Future Video Lab, brands can power up their video content and ensure their video distribution strategy doesn’t alienate the very audience they’re trying to attract.”  

Now if you can create content and advertising that does all that, you’ve got it made.

The company has partnered with the University of South Australia’s new Centre for Digital Video Intelligence (CDVI) to translate ad tech research into dollars, using Unruly's expertise.

For Advertising Week, Unruly is having a reception where, I presume, Devra Prywes, vice president of insights and marketing, and Richard Kosinski, the U.S. President, will attempt to impress clients with a rather methodical analysis of which commercials work and which don’t based on a zillion variables Unruly professes to understand. 

They might be better at figuring that than most of us, because, those two say, the share rate is actually down, a kind of indication those kicks just keep getting harder to find, but maybe an indication that audiences can spot share-bait a mile away.

But Unruly’s analysis shows, second by second, and separated by sexes, how we react to the slightest aspects of an ad. 

For that ad about female empowerment, for example, some folks tested exhibited hostility and some felt nostalgic, though on the face of it, the message seemed neither alienating or all that folksy. It’s a tricky thing, that brain.

Three out of four of hate an ad that “feels fake” yet what exactly creates that feeling (besides every laundry detergent ad ever)?  

The lab itself is a recitation of aspects of a good ad, and the practical chances of otherwise gaining attention because now there’s so much out there, it is easy to get lost, Kosinski said. Prywes is a repository of stunning facts about ad watching, sharing and trends that have come and gone, and presented the apparent fact that we are 475 times more likely to survive a plane crash than click on a banner ad.   

It is beyond my pay scale to prove if she’s right or wrong but it’s fascinating to see an updated and scientific spin on what, a very long time ago the Vance Packards of the world called “The Hidden Persuaders”, though not entirely meant in a positive way.

pj@mediapost.com