Conquest launches emotional reaction tool

Metaphorix uses interactive online animations to measure how people really feel towards a brand rather than relying on how they say they feel.

In this way it claims to be able to discover: the warmth experienced towards a brand; the level of intimacy people feel with it; how happy, excited, empathetic they are towards a brand; and how "cool and talked about" they consider it to be.

Metaphorix builds on the recent work David Penn, co founder of Conquest, has done on cognitive linguistics and claims to apply breakthroughs in neuroscience to consumer behaviour.

Penn claims that consumers are bombarded with so much information there isn't time to think so emotions power much of their engagement with brands and unconscious shortcuts are used to help make decisions.

Penn said: "Much current research is past its sell-by date. It assumes brand decisions are conscious, explicable and rational. In reality our behaviour and our response to brands is highly emotional.

"We can finally explain the success of commercials that fail conventional tests and then go on to become favourites."

Conquest employs 40 people and its clients include General Mills, Pizza Hut, L'Oreal, Nationwide, Premier Foods and KFC.