• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, November 18, 2024

Consumer engagement tied to emotions isn’t just a blip across the ad industry during the holidays -- it is reshaping purchase habits that marketers can use to drive year-long success.

Developers at connected TV (CTV) tech company Wurl, an AppLovin company, have figured out how to use generative AI (GAI) to match the emotion in Free Ad-Supported Streaming Television (FAST) content with the emotion in a CTV ad.

Wurl CEO Ron Gutman told MediaPost the technology can detect the emotion in the content being shown and then serves an ad that matches that same emotion. When the ad has a somber emotion, it seems to perform better when tied to content with a somber tone, and happiness in an ad seems to perform better with upbeat content.

Wurl’s technology, BrandDiscovery, uses the principles behind the psychological tool Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions, created in 1980.

When asked why humans behave this way, Gutman said “we see people change channels more often when the emotion in the content does match the emotion in the ad. Why humans behave like this is a good question.”

Gutman said measurement shows that ads that resonate with the content can achieve between 200% and 300% better results.

“Without AI we couldn’t analyze emotions properly,” he said. "We have entered an era of AI that will soon enable us to better able to understand ourselves."

Wurl’s AI analyzes its channels in real=time looking for emotions and reports on the outcomes.

According to Wurl’s 2024 CTV Trends Report, viewership spikes fourfold in December, but holiday cheer extends beyond the months known most for holiday spirit.

A trend in streaming TV viewership reveals that holiday channels maintained strong viewership throughout the year, not just during the holiday season.

AppLovin acquired Wurl about 2.5 years ago with plans to build out its CTV arm. Wurl launched in 2017, created its first FAST channel at the end of 2018 with Samsung, and now it has about 4,500 FAST channels. Most of the viewership is in North America, but it supports channels worldwide. It also fulfills a lot of ads and content discovery.

Wurl supports publishers, content companies for packaging and distribution, and demand-side platforms (DSPs) and brands and agencies. Reporting supports data on performance and business outcome.

PMG used BrandDiscovery’s emotion targeting earlier this year to align its clients’ quick service restaurant (QSR) ads with content that expressed emotions related to hunger and cravings. It increased incremental in-store visits by 40%, and incremental sales by 48%.

Monks drove increased brand awareness and purchase intent and cut their client’s cost per engagement in half. It increased brand awareness by 7x, brand favorability by 4x, and lift in purchase intent by 2x.