How brands and advertisers are feeling the power of in-content emotional targeting

In-content advertising allows brands to target audiences by emotion in a brand-new way, offering a simple solution to beat ad avoidance and the impending death of cookies.

April 27 2021: Ad avoidance, ad blocking, and ad skipping are a persistent thorn in the side of brands, advertisers and marketeers. Now the challenges they face are becoming even more acute, with Google’s announcement that their looming privacy policy pivot will phase out third party cookies, and a second blow as Apple turns the privacy settings of its mobile ecosystem upside down. Both moves will shut off a stream of data that app developers, measurement companies, and advertisers have used to link user behaviour across apps and mobile website, delivering a major blow to targeted advertising. The news sends a clear signal that the days of free reign data collection to target ads are numbered. 

At the same time, audiences love video, we consume masses of it, and in 2022 a whopping 82 percent of all global internet traffic will come from video. But just as audiences are creeped out by intrusive ads stalking them (HubSpot research shows 91% of people believe ads are more intrusive now), it’s no surprise that they also hate their viewing being disrupted by them too. 

It’s not all ads audiences are annoyed by though, they’re simply fatigued at being overwhelmed and interrupted by bad ones. As the New York Times so bluntly puts it: “people hate advertising and it’s all advertisers’ fault”. So how do you solve this conflict of interest and how do you address rampant ad avoidance and the imminent loss of cookies? 

We think we have an in-content advertising solution that can help. 

Mirriad’s technology is both creative and clever. Creative because it’s founded on Academy award-winning visual FX that ensures what we add into video brand wise is done seamlessly and in cinematic quality.

Clever because we are able to integrate brands and campaigns into content where people don’t look away, allowing us to secure reach that’s otherwise not been utilised. Our partnerships with leading content creators has given us inventory with over 27 million opportunities ready to embed brands into. It’s unskippable, unblockable, and unavoidable, because it immerses brands inside the content audiences are choosing to spend time in already and it doesn’t impair or interrupt their viewing.

Not only that, but our unique AI scans content for its emotional context, to find the perfect place for a brand to appear that will resonate with audiences most. This is new.

Behavioural marketing is replacing the way brands have previously made advertising decisions around content by reach, demographics and genre. Now brands can make these decisions by the emotions driven within individual scenes in content, creating a more nuanced approach to segmented marketing. Targeting audiences by emotion with-in content is a game changing tool with huge potential to reach beyond previously limited contextual advertising models.  

So, no more cookies? No problem! But don’t just take our word that this approach works! 

Partnered with neuroscience firm SPARK Neuro, Mirriad looked to find out just how effective emotional targeting in content can be—or as Campaign US put it: “Sadness sells, according to a new biometric study that measures the link between emotions in entertainment content and brand value”. 

The results show that emotional targeting drove significant value increases across all brands and products that were tested, including potato chips, Lysol disinfectant wipes and Jeep Wrangler.

This pioneering study means we now understand how different emotions can drive brand value depending on brand category, with multiple emotions showing positive lifts per category: sadness (food and drink +17% lift), disgust (cleaning products +22% lift) and anticipation (automotive +7%). Participants exposed to emotional scenes with brand insertions in the content also elicited a significant lift in price valuation compared to scenes without, due to the ‘emotional carryover’ effect; lifting by as much as +27% in the potato chip brand category.

• When a billboard for Jeep Wrangler was placed in a suspenseful hostage scene during an action drama, viewer “anticipation” prompted a 6% increase ($1,898) in perceived product value. In comparison, “joy,” prompted a 3.3% decrease in perceived product value in Phase 1 of the study.
• When Lysol disinfectant wipes were inserted in a gruesome scene, viewer “disgust” prompted a 22% increase ($1.30) in perceived product value. In comparison, “amusement,” spurred an 11.1% decrease in product value in Phase 1.
• When a potato chip brand was inserted into a very sad scene involving a mother and child, viewer “sadness” prompted a 27% percent increase ($1.28) in perceived product value. In comparison, “nostalgia,” scored an 11.1% decrease in the perceived value of a similar food product in Phase 1.

“Mirriad proved that timely integrations within premium broadcast content exponentially rose our brand awareness in comparison to “business as usual” paid assets. Their activation process was also seamless and took very little time/resources from our Brand Managers. Net-Net: An innovative offering that is quick to setup AND extremely effective at breaking-through,” says Nobles Crawford, Sr Media Manager Reckitt Benckiser (Lysol’s parent company).

Audience behaviour is evolving. Gen Z, the biggest generation of all time, with a greater percentage of the world population than any before it, are demanding we communicate with them in smarter ways and on their terms. In partnership with the industry and forward-thinking companies, we believe there’s a way forward beyond ad avoidance. A new advertising age is here, where we’re able to harness emotional targeting to integrate brands in-content at the moments that resonate most deeply with audiences.