Analysis of emotional responses to digital advertising campaigns for gastronomic and adventure tourism

Authors

Keywords:

Neuromarketing, emotions, digital advertising, tourism, FaceReader

Abstract

This study analyzes the emotional responses generated by digital advertising campaigns applied to tourism marketing in the Province of Cotopaxi, Ecuador, in light of the limited local empirical evidence on the emotional impact of audiovisual tourism content. The objective was to compare emotional responses and attention levels elicited by an A/B test between two digital advertising stimuli: a gastronomic tourism video (Video A) and an adventure tourism video (Video B), both provided by the Provincial Government of Cotopaxi. The research adopted a quantitative approach with an intra-subject experimental design, involving 78 participants who were randomly exposed to both stimuli. Emotional responses were measured using the biometric software FaceReader, based on the Facial Action Coding System (FACS), capturing basic emotions (happiness, surprise, sadness, and anger) and real-time attention levels. Data were analyzed using paired-sample t-tests, repeated-measures ANOVA, confidence intervals, and effect size measures. The results revealed statistically significant differences between both stimuli across all evaluated emotional and cognitive variables (p < 0.001), with higher levels of emotional activation and attention observed in the adventure tourism video. It is concluded that audiovisual stimuli with greater experiential and sensory content generate more intense emotional responses, confirming the usefulness of neuromarketing as an objective tool for evaluating the effectiveness of digital advertising c

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Published

2025-12-30