The effects of OLV design elements on skipping behaviour and brand recall

In collaboration with the University of Groningen – Sara Barisone (Master thesis in Marketing Analytics & Data Science) & Lisette Kruizinga – de Vries, Team Lead Science & Analytics DVJ Insights

In 2010, YouTube launched the “pre-roll online video (OLV)” ad format, known to the general public as  “the ad that precedes a YouTube video”. OLVs allow the viewer to skip the advertisement after five seconds, requiring that they watch at least a part of it. This increase in OLV advertising led consumers to experience it as an overload in their daily advertisement exposure. The advertising clutter and “add avoiding” behaviour resulted in considerably low brand recall. In the United States, 68% of viewers recall a maximum of five advertisements they watched in the previous week. In Europe, 75% of viewers do not recall the brand advertised while they had to watch an ad (Belanche et al., 2019). This is of course a serious issue for advertisers, as they want their ads and brands to be remembered. It is therefore a necessity to introduce certain design elements in the video, to ensure that viewers watch for the duration of the ads on the screen while retaining a definite message and achieving higher brand recall.

OLV ads Design elements

During her research, Sara Barisone investigated different design elements such as music, voice-over, subtitles, and brand mentions in pre-roll OLV ads on YouTube. She focused on their impact on skipping the ad and subsequently brand recall. In other words: does the use of music, a voice-over, or subtitles impact skipping behaviour and make people watch longer? And how do brand mentions play a role in this? We already know that there is a trade-off between mentioning the brand and skipping behaviour versus brand recall. Please also view this article for further detailed information: Conveying your brand in advertising…show or tell?

study set-up

Groningen University and DVJ Insights conducted extensive research to gain insights into the effect different design elements and brand mentions have on skipping behaviour and brand recall.

The study used a dataset from DVJ’S large-scale advertising pre-test for OLV ads across five countries: the Netherlands, Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Poland. The data was collected from 16,638 respondents who evaluated a total of 164 OLVs. In addition to the data provided by DVJ, Sara Barisone also manually coded the second-to-second advertisement design elements’ presence in all of the 164 OLV ads.

OLV DESIGN ELEMENTS Coding

Design elements, such as the second-to-second presence of brand mentions, subtitles, music, and voice-over, are manually coded across all OLV ads. A brand mention refers to verbal, audio-visual, and visual brand mention references. Both a replacement of the voice-over, and its completion, constitute subtitles. Voice-over accounts for the actor’s dialogue within the OLV ads as well as the off-screen voice. On top of that, it is coded whether the OLV ad contains music and when music is present, the beat per minute (BPM) is calculated using an online song BPM finderThe tempo is then classified per second according to the Italian tempo scale: Adagio, Andante, Moderato, Allegro, Presto, and Prestissimo (very slow to very fast).

Medium-fast music increases brand recall

Music strongly influences people. It can improve memory, lift a mood, provide comfort, and improve cognition. As music is linked to memories, it generates an unexpected stimulus that captures the viewer’s attention, decreasing the probability that they skip the ad (Alexomanolaki et al., 2006). Music tempo affects the strength of this phenomenon. The higher the level of BPM, the lower the likelihood of skipping behaviour. The reason for this is that a higher BPM may trigger stronger emotions that boost interest in the advertisement and create a higher likelihood of watching the entire ad (Kellaris and Kent, 1991). Results show that moderato and allegro music tempos (medium-fast ), increase skipping behaviour, which is not what was expected. However, when the moderato and allegro music tempos are combined with adagio (the slowest), brand recall increases. It seems that music does play a role in people’s attention span for an ad, but its tempo is probably not the only explanation. It is most likely also true that whether or not someone likes the type of music, and whether or not the music suits the brand, also play a role in explaining brand recall.

Another interesting finding is that a voice-over in an ad increases brand recall. This can potentially be explained by the following: Human voices can generate empathy while transmitting emotions and feelings. In terms of advertisement benefits, the human voice (voice-over in the ad content), is said to mesmerize viewers while they watch an online video ad. Voice-over within the advertisement is made by professional voice users who utilize their voice to tell the story to market a product and/or brand within the ad (Medrado et al., 2005). Research has found that a voice-over increases the overall attention paid to the ad, thus potentially leading to higher brand recall. Another possible explanation is that in advertising, many brands already use recognisable voices in their ads which may already be linked to the brand.

implications for advertisers

Advertisers can use the study findings when determining which music tempo and voice- overs to use in ads. This study has, however, only considered music tempo, whereas there are many more music elements that should probably be taken into consideration when adding music to your ad. Just to name a few: does the music fit the brand, and is the music happy or sad?

Moreover, voice-over in ads could definitely improve brand recall. In an already saturated media landscape, increasing advertising effectiveness will be fundamental for marketers to keep up with developments and continue to improve their performance.

references

Alexomanolaki, M., Loveday, C., & Kennet, C. (2006). Music and Memory in advertising; Music as a device of implicit learning and recall, ICMPC9 Proceedings, 1190-1198.

Belanche, D., Flavián, C., & Pérez-Rueda, A. (2020). Brand recall of skippable vs non-skippable ads in YouTube. Online Information Review, 44(3), 545–562.

Kellaris, JJ., & Kent, R.J. (1991). The influence of music on consumers’ temporal perceptions: Does time fly when you’re having fun? Journal of Consumer Psychology, 1(4), 365-376.

Medrado, R., Ferreira, L. P., & Behlau, M. (2005). Voice-over: Perceptual and acoustic analysis of vocal features. Journal of Voice, 19(3), 340–349.