ESI adds up the positive and negative words used by consumers in response to ads tested by Ace Metrix. The company says the index does not judge an ad but rather looks to give advertisers an index score that they can use to understand how well an ad engages with viewers on an emotional level relative to every other ad in the database, other ads in a category and other ads by the same advertiser.

It comes in addition to the current Ace Score system which measures advertising attributes such as persuasion, desire, relevance, change, attention-span, information, likeability and watchability.

“We are dedicated to developing new and better metrics that allow brands to effectively measure the ad creative as it relates to their specific objectives. For some campaigns the objective is rational, for others – emotional,” said Peter Daboll, Ace Metrix CEO. “As such, advertisers not only have this new metric to assess the emotional impact of their latest ads, but the Emotional Sentiment scores are available for all of our 22,000+ ads dating back to 2009.”

The ads currently seated highest on the index are from a Dawn soap campaign, “Dawn Saves the Wildlife” (pictured), depicting ducks, penguins and otters being rescued and cleaned. This series of ads, originally airing back in April 2010, remains at the top of the index with emotional index scores of 96 and 100. However, an ad for pest terminator Terminix – called “Tentacles Over Cupcakes” – holds one of the lowest places on the index at 12. Featuring up-close animations of bugs and critters invading the home – the ad elicits 283 voluntary verbal responses laden with the terms “gross”, “disgusting”, and “bugs”.