Neuroscience Study Finds Ads on Pandora Outperform TV and Radio Spots

Can songs shape memories? Illustration: Dianna McDougall; Source: Getty Images Much has been written about what our brains look like on music. But what kind of chords are struck when songs play with ads? To better understand how personalized listening affects the impact of advertising, Pandora commissioned Neuro-Insight—a neuro-marketing company—to measure brain activity in real time as 100 people were exposed to various ads while listening to between 25 and 30 minutes of their personalized playlists. According to the findings, audio advertising elicited a better emotional response in the part of the brain related to long-term memory. The results, expected to be released today, said that the audio ads within Pandora impacted participants’ long-term memory 49 percent better than terrestrial radio, 36 percent better than TV commercials and 29 percent better than mobile video ads. Pandora’s video ads also performed better, showing to be 5 percent more effective than mobile video ads on other platforms. According to Neuro-Insights CEO Pranav Yadav, long term memory is like a brain’s hard disk and short term memory is like RAM (random access memory). Every time we restart our computer, the RAM resets. “If brands are able to make it into people’s long term memory, it’s only then that people go out and purchase that product in the market,” Yadav told Adweek.