Pi-Consulting

Anglo-Dutch food giant Unilever wanted to find out not only if their products made people happy, but HOW happy. Enter Visual Recognition, an Amsterdam-based computer innovation lab attached to Amsterdam University. VR’s technology and software is geared to reading facial expressions and translating them into mathematical measures of satisfaction. The system works by creating a 3-D facial map that tracks shifts in twelve key areas of muscle-movement. The result is a consistent and accurate register of emotions such as sadness, distaste, surprise and – of course – happiness. A panel of 300 women (more facially expressive than their men-folk, apparently) were recorded while eating different kinds of ice-cream, confectionery and fruit. 87% registered apples as ‘neutral’, yoghurt was ’sad’ for 28% if the sample, and healthy-option ice-creams scored fewer smiling faces than their full-fat equivalents. Wait. Didn’t we kind of know that already? Source: mrweb.com, WARC, Pi.