What happens when you measure the facial expressions of people as they watch the most disliked trailer in Youtube history?
We used eye tracking and facial coding to find out. Using Sticky visual engagement technology, we measured what people really saw and felt as they watched the new “Ghostbusters” trailer. We wanted to go where no reaction video or article could go - into the mind of the consumer.
Our results confirmed the obvious - the trailer had a highly negative impact on people. The audience reacted with 29% negatively within the first 2 seconds, with negativity slowly rising until it hit its peak at 32% at 14 seconds. If the studios knew about these results in pre-testing they would’ve thought twice before releasing this trailer.
This high negative peak occurs at the moment when “Four scientists saved New York” appears on screen. Our eye tracking data shows a hot spot near the center of the text, which indicates that the text may be correlated with emotion. With 19% of the audience reflecting sadness and 0% reflecting surprise, this suggests that the audience knows what trailer this is, and may have seen it before.
In fact, audiences maintained low surprise levels throughout the video. This appears to correlate with YouTube’s 32M+ video views and suggests that the emotional reactions may have been defined from previous views.
Audience members also displayed a high level of disgust. This reached a peak at the 2:20 mark when Leslie Jones says, “The power of pain compels you,” as she reaches up her hand to slap Melissa McCarthy for the second time. As you can see from the heatmap below, audience members were looking at Ms. Jones’ face, particularly her eyes and mouth, while experiencing this emotion.
Then... finally! THE END. After low levels of positivity, joy spikes up to 14% when the video completes. This is the highest point of audience joy, and suggests that viewers are happy to be done with this trailer.
All in all, the new “Ghostbusters” trailer lived up to the (negative) hype. Audiences didn’t like it. And judging by the numbers, “Ghostbusters” is a disappointment at best, and a box office flop at worst. Reviews are mixed and audience reactions are polarizing. So could “Ghostbusters” have been saved with pre-testing?
As a remake featuring an all-female cast “Ghostbusters” was up against tough odds, but our research suggests that while it may not have been saved, “Ghostbusters” would’ve been greatly helped by emotion and visual testing.
In short: Emotion matters. So, make your content count. Start today. Start with us.
About: Created for Sticky.ai (now acquired by Tobii Pro).
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