• by Tanya Gazdik , July 7, 2016

Gillette’s “This Father’s Day, Go Ask Dad” earned the highest breakthrough ad of the quarter, according to Ace Metrix’s list of the top 10 breakthrough ads from the second quarter of 2016.

The 2:36 digital ad tugs at the heartstrings by having fathers teach their sons skills such as tying a tie and shaving. Viewer verbatim responses used words like “touching,” “heartwarming” and “cry” in abundance when describing the ad. 

Ads from Procter & Gamble and Unilever’s Dove Skin, in second and third place on the list, show that CPG brands are leading the charge in creating ads that connect with their consumers via emotion, and also featured mothers and fathers in their ads this quarter. The top five list of biggest breakthrough ads was rounded out by ads from Google and Apple.

The overall theme of top ads was emotion. Ads that featured mothers, fathers and the notion of home broke through the clutter and were the most liked, as well as ads that were longer in length — all but one ad was more than one minute long.

Long form is important to use in small doses -- particularly on TV where media prices are much more expensive, says Peter Daboll, CEO of Ace Metrix.

“Many brands run shorter lengths on TV, but direct viewers to the longer form on YouTube or their own site,” Daboll tells Marketing Daily. “But, as we have seen in many studies, longer-form ads have the time to communicate a story better and create that connection with a user.”

On the flip side, viewers use the word "long" to describe longer-form ads. 

“We live in an ADD culture, so just because an ad is long doesn't make it better, but it is true that longer ads have a better chance of making a viewer feel something,” Daboll says.

Brands can learn that connecting emotionally with viewers is the new normal for ads to be seen, he says. Brands are realizing that unless there is quality creative that is likable, attention-grabbing and relevant that evokes viewer emotion, viewers will not engage, view and/or share the content. 

“If ads don't provide some benefit to the viewer, what we call ‘return on viewers’ attention,’ they won't choose to watch it,” Daboll says. “Brands need to tell their story of how their product can enrich their lives, and they do this by making emotional connections.” 

The Ace Score components of likeability and attention combine to form the breakthrough dimension of an ad, which measure an ad’s ability to break through the clutter and get noticed. Ace Metrix measures ad creative effectiveness based on viewer reaction to video ads, providing the advertising industry an unbiased resource to measure creative impact. The company collected more than 1,945 ads in the second quarter, April 1 through June 30.