• by Tobi Elkin , Staff Writer @tobielkin, May 11, 2017

Mother's Day is coming up this weekend -- but new research finds that dads are actually more emotional than moms.  Unruly's Parents Playbook study also revealed that dads overindex across all devices and are more likely to buy when watching video ads.

Unruly tracked emotions including happiness, inspiration, surprise, and pride when parents watched video ads. The research found that millennial parents are more emotional than GenX parents and should be targeted differently. Also, millennial parents are more likely to feel happiness (28%), inspiration (20%), amazement (23%),pride (22%), and nostalgia (25%), compared to GenX parents.  

Among the additional findings brands might find useful:

--It’s easier to emotionally connect with parents: Parents are more likely to feel every emotion ads trigger more intensely than the average viewer. Parents are also more likely to feel positive emotions like happiness (+28%), inspiration (+25%), pride (+16%) and amazement (+25%) than non-parents.

--Parents are more likely to like your products after watching an ad: Parents are more likely to find your product empowering (11%), innovative (12%), high quality (13%) and a good value (11%), compared to non-parents.

--Parents are more likely to act after watching your ads: Based on all the post-viewing behavior metrics tracked, parents are more likely to act on each metric, including to watch your ad again (52%), talk about it (49%), share it online (46%), find out more (49%), or intend to buy the product or service featured (50%).

--Parents migrate across all devices: When asked where parents watched video in the last 30 days, desktop is still the top device for watching video at 50%, but parents also migrate across mobile phones (48%), laptop (48%), tablet (44%), connected TV (38%) and game consoles (23%).

The takeaway? “Marketers are frequently looking to target Mom, but it turns out targeting Dad will give them greater ROI on their ads,” stated Unruly’s SVP of marketing and insight, Devra Prywes. “The role of fathers continues to evolve at home, and our data shows that they are also easier to engage online, more active, and more likely to want to buy."