According to research, Snapchat users are happier while using the app, as compared to other social platforms. There are various reasons for this, but Snap says that this is because people feel more free to ‘express their authentic selves’, because they’re generally communicating with their closest friends and family in the app.

But what does that mean for brands? Does that mean that marketing approaches are seen as more interruptive within this experience?

To find out, Snapchat recently partnered with Neuro-Insight to conduct a study of 126 people, aged 16 to 39, to see how they respond to ads in Snapchat versus three other competitive platforms. The users wore electrode-embedded headsets, which enabled Neuro-Insight to measure brain activity, and get a true representation of how people mentally respond to different elements.

Among their key findings:

• Neurological engagement levels remained comparatively high when using Snap, regardless of what they were doing
• In showing participants the same ads across each platform, when users saw them on Snapchat, engagement scores that were 1.6x greater than on the other apps
• Snap ads also saw greater brand outcomes, with an increased likelihood that Snapchatters would both purchase the product themselves and recommend the brand to friends

You can read Snap’s full neurological research report here, or take a look at the infographic overview of the key findings below.