Concept & Storyboard Testing
Validate a script or storyboard before it hits production. Surface confusion, brand-fit issues, and emotional pull at the cheapest stage to fix them.
Ad Testing That Reveals What Actually Resonates
Traditional ad testing delivers scores without explanations. Alchemic's AI-moderated interviews reveal what resonates and why, before you commit your media budget.
[The Problem]
Ad Testing Shouldn't Force Compromise
Traditional research makes you choose: quick feedback from surveys, or deep insights from a handful of focus groups.
Either way, you're making creative decisions with incomplete information. Critical questions remain unanswered:
- Which specific elements drive emotional response?
- How do consumers actually interpret your messaging?
- What specific changes would improve ad performance?
[The Solution]
Understand the “Why” Behind Every Reaction
AI-moderated interviews with hundreds of consumers. Discover what resonates, what falls flat, and exactly why. Mixed methods research at the scale and speed your timeline demands.
Human-Like Conversations
Camera-on, AI-moderated. Goes beyond the script to probe — and reads facial emotion as respondents react. Conversational depth surveys can’t capture, paired with non-verbal cues focus groups miss.
24/7 Global Research Team
Hundreds of concurrent interviews. 50+ languages. Statistical confidence with qualitative depth.
Instant Actionable Insights
AI generates consultancy-grade reports with key themes, summaries, and consumer verbatim quotes.
[How It Works]
Test your Ad Creatives before launch in 3 Simple Steps
01
Share Your Ad Concepts
Upload creative assets and ad testing objectives. Our expert human researchers tailor the AI to your specific study.
02
AI Tests with Target Consumers
AI moderator shows concepts and conducts adaptive interviews. Probes reactions to specific elements and explores unexpected responses.
03
Understand What Works and Why
AI synthesizes patterns: which elements resonate, where messaging confuses, what drives preference. Strategic reports with explanatory verbatims.
[Use Cases]
Every ad-testing scenario, from concept to in-market.
Whatever stage your creative is at — script, animatic, final cut, or already running — you can test it the same week.
Animatic & Rough-Cut Testing
Test rough-cut creative before final post. Catch pacing, music, and final-frame branding issues while the edit is still flexible.
Final Creative Validation
Pressure-test a finished spot before media commit. Confirm the message lands across segments, languages, and devices.
Multi-Variant A/B/C Testing
Run multiple creative cuts in parallel, scaling from 2 variants to 10+ — between-subjects design with rotated exposure, no order bias. Camera-on viewing captures emotion as it happens; you see which version drives recall, which drives intent, and the moment each spot wins or loses.
Post-Launch Ad Effectiveness
Field a wave 2–4 weeks after launch. Measure recall lift, message takeaway, and brand-association shift vs your launch baseline.
Localised Creative for Multi-Market Campaigns
Test the same creative across markets in 50+ languages — natively moderated in each, including native-Arabic for Gulf markets. Catch what plays in Mumbai but falls flat in Riyadh before you spend on adaptation.
[Methodology]
How the AI moderator probes a creative.
A 30-second spot is short. Most ad tests miss the part where consumers process it — and miss why they did or didn't react. Alchemic's AI moderator runs a five-stage probe on every interview.
First-impression capture (unprompted recall)
Before any specific question, the AI asks what stayed with the respondent a minute after watching. Unprompted recall is the cleanest signal of which elements actually landed.
Element-level diagnosis
The AI then probes specific creative elements — the opening shot, the music, the final-frame brand callout, the call-to-action — one at a time. Each element gets its own emotional read.
Emotion AI on video reactions
Camera-on interviews capture facial emotion across the spot — joy, surprise, confusion, disgust, calm, sadness, anger, fear — on a per-second timeline. Strong-emotion moments are auto-flagged so you see exactly when the ad lands or loses the viewer.
Independent brand-recall verification
A separate prompt later in the interview asks which brand the spot was for — without showing the creative again. Brand confusion shows up here, not in scorecards.
Diagnostic prescription
The AI closes with a relevance question: “What change, if any, would make this ad more relevant to someone like you?” Diagnostic, not prescriptive — keeps the read on consumer fit, not creative direction.
[Deliverables]
What lands in your inbox after every ad-test study.
Live reports, not 60-page PDFs delivered six weeks late. Every output is queryable, exportable, and built to defend the recommendation in a board meeting.
Live themed report
Themes auto-extracted from every interview, organised in an L1 → L2 → L3 hierarchy. Drill from a top theme into the underlying respondents, into the exact verbatim quote, into the exact moment in the video.
Verbatim quote bank
Every quote tagged by theme, sentiment, segment, and respondent profile. Export the relevant ones to your deck in two clicks.
Element-level diagnosis
Per-element scores plus the why: which element drove emotional response, which confused, which got remembered, which got ignored.
Sentiment timeline
How emotion shifted across the spot — second by second for video, region by region for static (heat-map style). Pinpoints the exact moment a creative gains or loses the viewer, layered with the 8-emotion timeline from emotion AI.
Segment cuts
Pivot the analysis by audience: age, geography, prior-brand user vs non-user, language, channel preference. Same study, twelve cuts.
Emotion-timeline reels
Strong-emotion moments from every interview, auto-clipped and tagged by emotion (joy spike, confusion peak, surprise reaction). Drillable to the exact respondent and the exact second. Each reel embeds the original video and the transcript.
[The Comparison]
How Alchemic compares to traditional ad testing.
Traditional ad testing makes you pick: speed (forced-exposure surveys) or depth (focus groups). Alchemic delivers both.
| Forced-Exposure Survey | Focus Group | Alchemic | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Turnaround | 2–4 weeks | 3–6 weeks | Days to a week |
| Interviews | Hundreds (fixed questions) | 6–30 respondents | 200–500 adaptive interviews |
| Languages | Available, typically translated post-hoc | Available, typically translated post-hoc | 50+ natively |
| Insight depth | Scores only | Discussion notes | Scores + the conversational why |
| Element-level diagnosis | None | Partial, moderator-led | Per-element AI probe |
| Creative variants | Typically 1–6 monadic variants | One or two concepts | 2 to 10+ variants |
| Brand-recall check | Prompted only | Moderator-led | Unprompted + independent verification |
| Output | Scorecard | Top-line + full report + transcripts + video | Live themed report + verbatim bank |
| Emotion AI | None | Moderator observation only | Per-second 8-emotion timeline on every respondent |
Need voice-first reach where chat doesn't fit — DTH, regulated categories, lower-literacy markets? AI Phone Research →
Trusted by brand and insights teams at
“Alchemic is ridiculously fast, and getting both qual and quant insights at that speed is a game-changer.”
[Testimonials]
Discover what our clients have to say about our consumer research services
[Frequently Asked Questions]
Ad testing, frequently asked.
How is AI ad testing different from traditional ad testing?
Traditional ad testing fields a fixed-question survey or runs a focus group. Alchemic’s AI moderator conducts an adaptive interview with each respondent on camera-on video — probing reactions to specific elements, following hesitation, and capturing facial emotion as it happens. You get hundreds of full interviews in days, not 60-respondent scorecards in weeks.
What kinds of ads can I test?
Video spots (15s to 90s), animatics and rough cuts, scripts and storyboards, static creative (print, OOH, social), audio (podcast pre-rolls, radio, voice ads), and multi-asset campaign concepts. Test pre-launch, post-launch, or anywhere in between.
How many respondents does an Alchemic ad test recruit?
Typical studies run 200–500 full interviews per market. Sample size scales with the number of variants you’re testing and the granularity of the segment cuts you need.
How long does an ad test take end-to-end?
Typical timeline: brief on Day 1, fielding live within 48 hours, full report ready within a week. Faster turnarounds are possible for hot creative — fielded in a day, reported the next.
Does Alchemic capture facial emotion and non-verbal reactions?
Yes. Alchemic’s interviews are video-first — camera-on with explicit respondent consent. Our emotion AI processes the recording to track 8 emotional states per second (calm, happy, surprised, sad, angry, confused, disgusted, fearful). Strong-emotion moments are auto-clipped, tagged, and surfaced in the report. You see where the ad worked, not just whether it did.
What languages and markets does Alchemic cover?
50+ languages, with native moderation in each — not translation. Tier-1 metros, Tier-2 and Tier-3 markets in India, and major emerging-market regions globally. WhatsApp distribution reaches respondents who don’t reliably show up to web surveys.
How do you ensure respondent quality?
Every interview is tagged with structured response flags (speeding, straightlining, copy-pasting, low genuineness, off-brief responses). Auto-reject rules filter out poor-quality responses before they hit your report; auto-approve rules speed up clean ones. You can tune both.
How does Alchemic compare to traditional ad-testing vendors (Kantar Link, Millward Brown, Nielsen)?
Use Kantar Link or Millward Brown when you need their normative benchmark database. Use Alchemic when you need diagnostic depth on a specific creative — element-level reactions, emotion AI tracks, and real verbatim explanations of every score. Faster, deeper, multi-language by default. Many teams run both.
How do you handle respondent consent and privacy for video recordings?
Every respondent gives explicit consent to camera recording before the interview begins. Recordings are stored securely, with optional face-blur anonymisation for sensitive use cases. Compliant with India DPDP, GDPR, and standard panel/consent frameworks. Full data-handling detail at /security.