Executive Summary
Senstream Neuromarketing:
Reading the Body's Unconscious Reaction to Media
Company
Senstream
Timeline
Multi-year engagement
Project
Neuromarketing Application
My Role
Product & UX Lead
The Problem
- Sympathetic nervous system data had never been captured outside a lab and turned into a scalable, commercial research product
- Turning raw biosignal streams into insight required a device participants could wear correctly in the field with no researcher present, and AI that could tell real signal from noise in real time
Outcome
- Shipped a BLE-connected research ring capturing five lab-grade biosignals, paired to a participant app pre-loaded with AI agents that protect data quality and study integrity
- Built the analyst platform and API that turn that raw signal into moment-by-moment insight into what parts of a piece of media people are unconsciously reacting to
- Now running across 3 partner operations, with 30+ studies and 500+ participants
My Role
- Product & UX lead across the ring, participant app, AI agents, and analyst platform
- Defined the pairing, comfort, and in-session experience for a non-researcher audience
- Directed design and behavior specification for the platform's AI agents
Detailed Case Study
The Research Ring
Five Sensors, Lab-Grade Signal
This is the Senstream Research Ring — a BLE-connected wearable built around five sensors that capture lab-grade biosignals. Together, PPG, EDA, ECG, skin temperature, and motion measure the body's involuntary, sympathetic nervous system response: the same physiological signals a clinical lab would use, worn on a finger instead of wired to a chair.
Optical blood-volume pulse. Systolic upstroke, dicrotic notch, diastolic peak.
Skin conductance. Slow tonic level, sharp phasic responses.
Cardiac electrical activity. P wave, QRS complex, T wave.
Skin temperature. Slow, low-amplitude drift over minutes.
Three-axis accelerometry. Movement bursts around a resting zero.
Neuromarketing
Seeing the Unconscious Reaction to Media
Neuromarketing is a new innovation in marketing that gives brands visibility into the unconscious reactions people have to media. Running the ring's biosignal data through AI analysis reveals, moment by moment, what parts of a video someone is emotionally compelled by — reactions a self-report survey can't capture, because the viewer isn't even consciously aware of having them.
From Signals to Insight
Now with an ML model, we could apply that intelligence to any media and visualize the audience's reaction while they wore the Senstream ring.
This prototype has allowed us to measure emotional reactions across a range of media
Commercials/Film Trailers/Political Ads
We can map emotional lift scene by scene, revealing which moments truly landed.
Sporting Events
We can track sustained intensity, pinpointing the seconds that drove peak engagement.
Platform
From Partner Panel to Field Study
We provide our partners — who already run their own participant panels — everything they need to send rings out into the field. The ring connects to the participant's phone through a specialized app for running research sessions, pre-loaded with AI agents. We also provide a codebase partners can fold into their own applications:
Signal Quality Agent
Protects the quality of the physiological data by continuously evaluating PPG, EDA, ECG, temperature, motion, connectivity, and related diagnostics.
Study Guardian Agent
Protects the validity of the study by monitoring whether the approved protocol is being followed across participants, stimuli, timing, systems, and data collection.
Participant App SDK - Home Screen and Ring Check
Participant App SDK - Video Play and Success
Analyst Platform & API
In addition, we provide a backend API that allows for the integration of collected data and the analysis, surfaced through a browser-based analyst platform. The interactive prototype below is a concept that visualizes our headless API:
Impact
The first commercial tool to analyze the sympathetic nervous system for people's unconscious reactions to media.
3
Partner Operations
30+
Studies Run
500+
Participants