Emotional Vs. Lighthearted: The Lure Of Advertisements

Despite the abundance of data, marketers still struggle with identifying similar types of interests that consumers with emotional and lighthearted preferences have.

To guide advertising media buys from television to search, Experian Marketing Services analysts looked at about 10 of the more talked-about commercials that ran during the 2017 Super Bowl and categorized them as either emotional or lighthearted. The team leveraged the company's Social Media Analysis tool to dig a bit deeper into the core demographics and social behaviors of the consumers who engaged with these brands. 

To analyze responses, Experian took Experian IDs and linked them to Twitter IDs, which allowed Experian to look at responses from real people, said Mindy Pankoke, data product manager at Experian Marketing Service.

The ads with more emotional appeal were Airbnb, Audi, Budweiser, Coke, and Lumber 84, whereas the more humorous advertisements came from Bai, Buick, Kia, Mr. Clean and T-Mobile. The size of the audience that was more attracted to emotional ads -- about 3 million -- during the one-month period analyzed was three times the size of the audience attracted to humorous brands.

Audi led with about 127,000 Twitter followers during the month. Airbnb came in second, but had the most gain, with 39,000 after the Super Bowl, up from 800 following their brand handle in August 2016. This audience also followed automotive companies Mercedes and BMW. The group also was more likely to use #travel and other sites that promoted romantic getaways.

More than 52% of the consumers who interacted with these brands on social media were women, and nearly 28% fell between the ages of 26 and 35. These consumers were 15% more likely to be single than the average social media user and were also 1.91 times more likely to reside in Washington D.C.

Some 54% of social media users who engaged with the brands tied to the lighthearted commercials were men. These consumers were also 26% more likely to be single than the average social media user and 1.55 times more likely to live in Washington State.

The types of social media handles these consumers were more likely to follow included restaurants such as Subway and McDonald's; food, such as Coca-Cola; and sports associations and networks such as the NFL and WWE. Technology influencers also rated high with this group. Those who preferred humorous ads also followed Ford and Chevy in terms of automobile brands.

The hashtag these consumers were more likely to talk about was #sweepstakes, while they were more likely to mention @shawnmendes than the average social media user.

1 comment about "Emotional Vs. Lighthearted: The Lure Of Advertisements".
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  1. Rachel Rosenfeld from NA, February 18, 2017 at 10:03 p.m.

    I find it extremely interesting that this amount of investigation and research is involved in deciding who is watching which advertisements. By discovering this information, companies can produce better content for their viewers. For example, maybe one commercial of theirs works better for one time of the day and one demographic, while their online presence focuses on a completely different group of people. The Super Bowl was a great opportunity for this data to be collected due to its large viewer base. It also does not surprise me that lighthearted and emotional were the top two categories of watched and discussed advertisements. I know from personal experience that commercials like the Audi one during the Super Bowl and the Nike commercial during the Grammy’s were ones I looked up long after their initial showing because of their powerful messages. The start important conversations that flood onto blogs and social media. On the flip side, I have seen the Mr. Clean commercial dozens of times on twitter and other platforms because of its light humor that everyone can enjoy. I think the two categories balance each other out in the world of marketing and are equally important to a consumer’s experience. I am curious, however what companies do when their demographic does not fit any of the categories listed above and how they can better market to those people. I have noticed more and more interactive advertising like “enter a chance to win” or “tell us what you think” and I wonder how things like the new “Oreo Challenge” stand up to mass media ads like the ones mentioned. 

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