New York, NY – No emotion is a bad emotion when it comes to creating content-led marketing campaigns, according to the second installment of BBC StoryWorks’ award-winning study “Science of Engagement.”  Building on the findings from the initial report published in January 2016, the focus of this latest research was to explore the connection between emotions and campaign metrics. In doing so, the team has produced valuable insights that can help brands understand how best to maximise the impact of content-led marketing campaigns through engaging with various emotions.

Working alongside CrowdEmotion once again, the study applied a combination of traditional research metrics with facial coding techniques, to measure consumer engagement from an emotional perspective.

Nine BBC StoryWorks campaigns featured on BBC.com formed the case studies for the research. The campaigns were a mix of video and written as well as an infograph created for a range of clients from HSBC, Huawei, AIG, to Cathay Pacific, Mazda, Hainan and Dassault Systemes.  Aside from analyzing the emotional impact of these campaigns, the research team also took into consideration the length of the content and number of social media referrals coupled with statistical techniques such as correlation analysis to identify the key drivers in each campaign’s success.

The research explored which emotions drove engagement amongst the nine campaigns. Key findings included that triggering serious emotions (puzzlement, fear and sadness) results in a deeper subconscious relationship with the brand. The theory was particularly well demonstrated by “Emerging from the Darkness,” a video produced with Huawei featuring artist John Brambitt, who discusses how he paints without being able to see. The content led to a 50% increase in subconscious positivity towards Huawei amongst viewers. The research also showed that triggering serious emotions can help support campaign objectives such as ad awareness, positivity, brand image and consideration. When applied to HSBC’s ‘Going the Distance’ campaign – an article focused on the difficulty of maintaining long distance relationships – ad awareness saw a staggering 217% increase.

Lighter emotions such as happiness and surprise also played a key role in consumers making purchase decisions and in driving feelings related to brand image and consideration for the brand. For example, Cathay Pacific’s light-hearted video on the evolution of in-flight dining received a 57% increase for both brand image and brand consideration.

The research also highlighted how effective content-led marketing campaigns on BBC.com are proving to be, with the average campaign delivering:

• 30% increase in subconscious positivity
• 49% increase in average brand image
• 56% increase in recommendation
• 50% increase in consideration

“Emotions drive people’s engagement with brands, both in their desire to be associated with those brands but also in their wish to purchase products or services. Providing a clearer understanding of which emotions should be considered can help drive the brand metrics that are critical to the success of content-led campaigns,” states Richard Pattinson, SVP, Content, BBC Advertising and Head of BBC StoryWorks. “Our latest research not only offers guidance on how to best influence audiences but highlights the success BBC Advertising is having with content-led marketing campaigns on BBC.com. A number of the campaigns included in the research received industry accolades, and they also resonate with the audience for BBC.com, which celebrated a record year in 2016 attracting 98 million browsers per month.”

The key takeaways:

• Trigger serious emotions to deepen subconscious relationships. Triggering puzzlement, fear and sadness = subconscious positivity.
• Trigger serious emotions to meet your campaign objectives e.g. puzzlement, fear and sadness increase positivity by 35%.
• Intrigue but don’t confuse – the right level of puzzlement will drive recommendation and consideration, too much will deter audiences.
• Don’t ignore the lighter emotions. Happiness and surprise increase desire to purchase, supporting brand image and consideration.
• Content marketing has a powerful impact for less well known brands.
• Clearly label your brand – it adds credibility to the content, consumers are more likely to understand and remember it, it will be more persuasive and have a positive impact on their perception of the brand.
• Choose video because it drives bigger brand uplifts (e.g. brand images are 5x more effective).
• Showcasing the right emotions will drive social media referrals. 55% of consumers who express happiness, puzzlement and fear are likely to share content.

Methodology:

The study involved five markets – Hong Kong, Australia, Germany, the US and Singapore – and 9,136 participants.