Researchers from the University of Southern California, University of Houston, and Uber Technologies, Inc. published a new paper in the Journal of Marketing , which finds that in order to create viral ads, brands should arouse strong emotion, place brand mentions at the end of the video, keep ads to a moderate length of 1.0 to 1.5 minutes, and use authentic characters. To arouse emotions, a brand should create an ad with a captivating plot, a surprising ending, and authentic characters; they also should use babies and animals more than celebrities.
The study forthcoming in the July issue of the Journal of Marketing titled "The Critical Role of Information, Emotion, and Brand Prominence," is authored by Gerard J. Tellis, Deborah J. MacInnis, Seshadri Tirunillai, and Yanwei (Wayne) Zhang.
YouTube is a media channel where millions of users create and share billions of videos without charge. It has also become a key platform for advertisers. Brands value YouTube because of the opportunity to reach more than one billion unique users who watch more than one billion hours of video daily. YouTube provides a low-cost and flexible platform for sharing ads with a path to wide viewership if an ad goes viral.
The research team tested five hypotheses about what drives sharing of video ads across social media, using two independent field studies that analyzed 11 measures of emotion and over 60 ad characteristics. The study included 109 brands that were among the top 100 US advertisers in 2012 as well as additional brands that were historically active on YouTube.
Key findings include:
"Our findings provide marketing and media managers, advertisers, and copywriters with specific theory-based insights into how to design ads to drive virality," says Tellis. "While the old mantra touted exposure, exposure, exposure for brand names, we find that minimal brand exposure, discreet information, and strong emotion are key drivers of virality."
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Full article and author contact information available at: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022242919841034
About the Journal of Marketing
The Journal of Marketing develops and disseminates knowledge about real-world marketing questions useful to scholars, educators, managers, policy makers, consumers, and other societal stakeholders around the world. Published by the American Marketing Association since its founding in 1936, JM has played a significant role in shaping the content and boundaries of the marketing discipline. Christine Moorman (T. Austin Finch, Sr. Professor of Business Administration at the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University) serves as the current Editor in Chief. https://www.ama.org/jm
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Journal of Marketing