Happiness, sadness, anger, surprise, disgust, and fear - these six basic human emotions affect our mood and guide most of the choices we make over the course of our day. Purchase decisions are no exception. It should come as no surprise that the success level of an ad is strongly tied to the emotional engagement levels of the consumer.

In fact, an Institute of Practitioners in Advertising Study of over 1,400 of the most successful ad campaigns of the last 30 years showed that those with purely emotional content performed about twice as well as those with only rational content. Advertising has always been a business steeped in driving emotional connection. As Mad Men's Don Draper said, "You are the product. You feeling something. That's what sells.”

Even though Mad Men is set in the 1960s, it is more relevant than ever today. Given the endless amount of product choices and ads that consumers are subjected to (sometimes as many as 10,000 per day), it takes a special effort to grab their attention.

From our extensive experience running digital video campaigns, we have uncovered several ways to capture consumer attention and connect with them emotionally.

The first is to build a strong narrative. By creating content centered around the audience and their experiences and relating it back to your product, you can tap into their desires and generate a positive association with your product. Creative that brings to mind feelings of closeness, romance, and humor is especially effective in creating a storyline around your brand that consumers can latch onto.

Sequential messaging is another important piece to building a relationship with your consumers, and it goes hand-in-hand with the narrative approach described above. When video is delivered in a sequenced fashion, it takes more of a storytelling approach, which is the best way to elicit audience attention. Storytelling has proven to be effective for activities ranging from selling beer to treating dementia patients, so it should come as no surprise that it holds major value in advertising. Sequential messaging can tell a story that initially creates an awareness-based emotional link with consumers and then drives them down the purchase funnel, resulting in 3.4x increases in purchase intent.

Lastly, it's important to make sure the emotional tone and video length of your creative are compatible with each other. GlassView studies on our most successful creatives have shown that certain emotions are most effective when viewed in different contexts. For videos 15-30 seconds in length, audiences are most receptive to humor and happiness. For videos 30-60 seconds, nostalgia is the tone to hit on. Videos that are over 60 seconds should focus more on the how-to aspects of a product or brand, as limited consumer attention spans make it challenging for them to stay emotionally engaged with videos that show this much content in one sitting.

Once you have used these strategies to secure that coveted emotional connection, your brand can reap major benefits in the form of brand loyalty and repeat purchases. According to a Capgemini's Digital Transformation Institute survey, 82 percent of consumers always buy from brands they feel an emotional connection with, while only 38 percent of consumers say they would buy from a brand that they have low emotional engagement with.

These stats show that the urgency of developing an emotional relationship with your audience should not be taken lightly. GlassView's industry expertise, platform reach, innovations, and proven track record of excellent performance make us an excellent partner to help you achieve these goals.

To learn more about GlassView and our services, check out our website or contact us.