Engagement on connected TV (CTV) is reaching new levels, with this quarter expected to be one of the all-time highest for viewership. As a result, the opportunity for advertisers to connect with audiences on the largest screen in the home continues to grow stronger and show promise.
Yet, CTV isn’t without its challenges. The medium lacks consistency and transparency, which impedes advertisers’ ability to know exactly where their campaigns run and ultimately what outcomes they’re driving. So, with more premium content and engaged audiences flocking to CTV, how can advertisers take advantage and drive success?
The role of emotions
Television is an emotional vessel—a way to tell stories and connect with viewers through a common medium. For advertisers on TV, it has enabled them to use programming to build emotional connections with audiences. And now, there’s an opportunity for brands to replicate that approach on CTV.
But why pay so much attention to emotion? Consider the viewer experience if, in the middle of a heartfelt, tear-jerking scene, a loud or upbeat commercial comes on and startles them out of the moment. This is jarring, and will likely lead to negative attention for the brand—no brand wants to be thought of as some annoying ad that disrupted a show or caused such noticeable emotional whiplash by reaching viewers at the wrong time.
In 1980, psychologist Robert Plutchik identified eight primary emotions: joy, anticipation, anger, disgust, sadness, surprise, fear and trust. For advertisers, joy most often serves as the foundation for emotional targeting, given consumer happiness is proven to impact sales. Still, it isn’t the only emotion to target—after all, if every advertiser’s message centered only on joy, it wouldn’t be very memorable or unique, and because humans are complex beings, our emotions and ways to resonate with messaging are myriad. A more effective approach would be combining joy with other emotions, appealing to a consumer's additional wants and needs.
Ultimately, different emotions perform in different verticals. Finance and insurance brands, for instance, are often trying to convey trust in their messages since they are typically asking people to make commitments with their money. Thus, priming viewers to be in a “trust” state of mind before seeing a finance-related ad would make them more receptive to it.
On the other hand, food and beverage brands benefit from eliciting anticipation, which has been shown to drive people’s cravings and hunger. Travel brands are often selling an experience that exceeds the consumer’s everyday lives and activities, so messages based around surprise make consumers feel in awe of the possibilities.
Timing is everything
The formula for a successful CTV advertising campaign is fairly simple: The right audience and the right message at the right time equals the desired outcome. Where emotions come into play is in that third part of the equation: timing.
When ads align with the right time at which the audience is emotionally primed to receive the message, brands drive better engagement and stronger results. A great example of this in action comes from Monks: The agency drove a 33% increase in brand awareness and 28% improvement in brand favorability for a financial services client when the emotion of the creative was aligned to the emotion of the content on screen directly before the ad break.
For most consumers, the television is the largest screen in the home, and it most often operates within a non-skippable ad environment. Meeting these viewers where they are at the right moment is key to driving positive attention. This is especially true considering CTV and TV capture more attention than other channels—roughly eight times more than mobile and 16 times more than desktop.
Emotion drives outcomes
CTV as a digital medium presents advertisers with an opportunity to target the right audiences with the right message at the right time—the same approach brands see consistent success with on mobile and web. Thanks to new technologies and strategies like emotions-based targeting, advertisers are now getting more insight into what that “right time” is.
As more viewers continue to engage with CTV, a brand’s ability to meet them where they are emotionally will be key. By aligning the content of the ad with the emotion the audience just felt on-screen, advertisers can create more positive, memorable experiences for viewers and ultimately drive better outcomes.
