• by Tyler Loechner  @mp_tyler, March 25, 2015

Unruly, a video ad tech firm, on Wednesday announced new targeting features that it claims are based on consumers’ emotional states.

The company, which specializes in social video advertising, says the “emotional targeting” is based on over 250,000 consumer data points coming from over 1.3 trillion video views, gathered via panel tests and subsequent audience surveys.

That data is fed into Unruly’s predictive targeting algorithm, which the company claims is able to accurately target audiences based on how they will emotionally respond to certain content.

“Consumers who are more emotionally engaged with a branded video are more likely to share the video, more likely to remember the brand, and more likely to buy the product,” stated Scott Button, CEO of Unruly. “For marketers, this means more engagement, more earned media and, ultimately, more sales.”

“When we say someone that experiences an emotional connection with a video, we mean someone that connects most strongly -- i.e. on a scale of 1-10, someone that hits a 9 or 10 -- to one of the emotional responses that helps get videos shared,” an Unruly representative explained.

The rep said the emotions measured include amazement, exhilaration, happiness, hilarity, inspiration, pride, nostalgia, sadness or warmth.