Positive online adverts better for engaging audiences

The research also found that digital adverts with clear, rapid branding that causes an intense emotional response lead to greater recall.

The findings are based on analysis of 50 Pinterest adverts using System1’s Test Your Ad platform, which assigns adverts a one to 5.9-star rating based on emotional response from an advert’s audience.

Digital ads with a higher-than-average star rating yielded six times more brand lift, specifically action intent, and generated 20% greater ad recall.

Meanwhile, ads with a higher-than-average spike rating (earned through rapid branding and high emotional intensity) lead to significant advertising awareness uplift and three times greater action intent. 

Suggestions for increasing emotional engagement online included referencing cultural moments or trends, using recurrent characters and scenarios, and telling a good story.

Orlando Wood, chief innovation officer at System1, said: “Pinterest is in a unique position as its users come to the platform with intent, searching for specific needs and products, using narrow-beam attention, while also using the platform for discovery, using their broad-beam attention.

“This research gives brands a better understanding of how to engage consumers in a world that’s now fuelling increasingly shorter attention spans.”  

Antoine Le Notre, head of measurement Europe, Middle East and Africa at Pinterest, said: ”While traditionally advertisers have found it easier to focus on products rather than showcasing the emotional benefits they bring, this new research with System1 indicates that it is worthwhile for brands to also speak to people’s right brain and that emotions are key for an ad to be memorable, but also crucially to drive incremental action intent.”