BioNimbus is a new patent-pending technology from Nimbus-Online Inc. that shows truthful human reactions to any part of a package while it is moving through a 3D virtual reality space. The ability to zero in on specific parts of something a person is viewing, and measure biological responses, in real time, marks a huge advancement in the science of optical, neural and biometric measurement.
"We all know people lie on surveys," says Jerry Johnson, president of Nimbus Online Inc., "so we invented a way to measure truthful responses very accurately."
Johnson and David Evans, who holds a Ph.D. in experimental social psychology and lectures on the Psychology of Digital Media at the University of Washington, authored a white paper on the technology. "Companies just want to know, if they put a baseball or a heart on the package will it sell more?" says Johnson. "Until now, science has not been able to answer that question precisely."
Currently, BioNimbus is geared to better consumer packaging solutions, but the potential extends far beyond packaging. Application possibilities range from training security personnel to helping entertainment companies read audience reactions to an actor, measuring their box office appeal before casting a movie.
In action, BioNimbus looks like the person, wearing headgear, is just playing a video game, but it's really a high-tech device that pinpoints which particular part of an item they see is stimulating them most. People can select items from virtual shelves and turn them to examine all surfaces while their eyes, brainwaves and electrodermal (skin) activity are simultaneously tracked.
The technology is already garnering serious interest from big retailers and consumer products companies eager to determine what will make their packages or advertisements sell more.
The parent company of Nimbus-Online, Cascade Strategies, has been around for 22 years, working with many Fortune 500 companies and their Advertising Agencies. Johnson and his team of data scientists at Nimbus-Online toiled for 4 years to fine-tune BioNimbus.
