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📝 Intro

How do you encourage more people to watch your ads, rather than skip or mute them?

In the past, advertisers played ads as loud as possible to attract attention. 

This isn’t happening anymore (fortunately). Technology can prevent ads from playing louder than regular programs and new regulations have appeared to stop the practice, such as the CALM (Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation) Act - enforced in the US since 2012.

So advertisers have started making ads more energetic, as a way to make more people watch them.

Does it work?

This study analyzed the viewing behavior of 9 million US households of 27,000 TV ads to find out.

High energy ads are more likely to be watched

Impacted metrics: Ad reach
Channels: Video ads
For: B2C
Research date: February 2022

📈 Recommendation

Make your video ads highly energetic. Use upbeat, exciting, and fast-changing music, narration, and video shots. People will be less likely to avoid them.

This effect gives a positive boost on average, not always. For example, avoid showing energetic ads when people are watching sad or relaxing content, or when it’s not appropriate for your product (e.g. a romantic holiday destination). Use your judgment.

If you can, try to show your energetic ads during the day and evening rather than nighttime.

🎓 Findings

• More energetic video ads, on average, are less likely to be shut off or avoided by viewers.

• Highly energetic ads feel fast, loud, and noisy.

• The effect varies widely depending on the context. Mainly: 

  • The type of product (e.g. new running shoes vs funeral services)

  • The content it is shown around (e.g. sad soap opera vs action-packed movie vs daily news)

The energy level of TV ads in the US increased 33% between September 2015 and August 2018

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🧠 Why it works

• High energy in ads is strongly correlated with giving us feelings of excitement and stimulation.

• In turn, when we are stimulated we are more likely to stay tuned on the ad.

✋ Limitations

• This study only establishes a correlation, not clear causation that high energy ads lead to more viewing. However, previous lab studies on the topic suggest there likely is causation.

• The data used tells us what the TV sets were tuned on (or not) by the second. However, we don’t know whether people were actually paying attention to the screen.

• The researchers ran an experiment to find a strong correlation between high-energy video content and high-energy audio content. Then they focused on the audio of the 27,000 ads. They did not extensively analyze the video content of ads.

🏢 Companies using this

• Ads for trucks, SUVs, entertainment, and retailers tend to be fast, loud, and noisy.

• Ads for business and legal services, education, and governments tend to be low energy.

• Examples of high energy TV ads

  • Under Armour “We Will” featuring Michael Phelps and Misty Copeland

  • Fruit of the Loom “Holidays: Feel Free to Celebrate”

  • 2018 Honda Accord “Tower of Success”

• Examples of low energy TV ads

  • Nike “Until We All Win” featuring Serena Williams

  • Clorox Bleach “Bleach It Away: Distance”

  • PNC Bank “Know You’re Saving for Special Moments”

⚡ Steps to implement

• When designing the creative of your video ads (e.g. TV, YouTube) think about whether a high energy ad is appropriate for your product and where you plan to place it.

• To make a high energy ad use loud, noisy, and preferably fast music. Try to have fast changes between scenes or actors that move quickly and energetically.

🔍 Study type

Market observation (analysis of 27,000 TV ads from 3,200 brands shown between 2015 and 2018 and all 3,077 Super Bowl ads from 1969 to 2020). United States

📖 Research

High-Energy Ad Content: A Large-Scale Investigation of TV Commercials. Journal of Marketing Research (February 2022).

🏫 Researchers

• Joonhyuk Yang. Mendoza College of Business, University of Notre Dame

• Yingkang Xie. Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

• Lakshman Krishnamurthi. Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

• Purushottam Papatla. Lubar School of Business, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee

Remember: This is a new scientific discovery. In the future it will probably be better understood and could even be proven wrong (that’s how science works). It may also not be generalizable to your situation. If it’s a risky change, always test it on a small scale before rolling it out widely.

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