TY - JOUR
T1 - High-Energy Ad Content
T2 - A Large-Scale Investigation of TV Commercials
AU - Yang, Joonhyuk
AU - Xie, Yingkang
AU - Krishnamurthi, Lakshman
AU - Papatla, Purushottam
N1 - Funding Information:
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Lakshman Krishnamurthi would like to acknowledge the Montgomery Ward Foundation for their research support.
Publisher Copyright:
© American Marketing Association 2022.
PY - 2022/8
Y1 - 2022/8
N2 - A trend reported by both academics and practitioners is that advertising on TV has become increasingly energetic. This study investigates the association between the energy level in ad content and consumers’ ad-tuning tendency. Using a data set of over 27,000 TV commercials delivered to U.S. homes between 2015 and 2018, the authors first present a framework to algorithmically measure the energy level in ad content from the video of ads. This algorithm-based measure is then compared with human-perceived energy levels showing that the measure is related to the level of arousal stimulated by ad content. By relating the energy levels in ad content with the ad-tuning tendency using two empirical procedures, the authors document the following: overall, more energetic commercials are more likely to be tuned in or less likely to be avoided by viewers. The positive association between energy levels in ad content and ad tuning is statistically significant after controlling for placement and other aspects of commercials. However, the association varies across product categories and program genres. The main implication of this study is that advertisers should pay attention to components of ad content other than loudness, which has been regulated by law.
AB - A trend reported by both academics and practitioners is that advertising on TV has become increasingly energetic. This study investigates the association between the energy level in ad content and consumers’ ad-tuning tendency. Using a data set of over 27,000 TV commercials delivered to U.S. homes between 2015 and 2018, the authors first present a framework to algorithmically measure the energy level in ad content from the video of ads. This algorithm-based measure is then compared with human-perceived energy levels showing that the measure is related to the level of arousal stimulated by ad content. By relating the energy levels in ad content with the ad-tuning tendency using two empirical procedures, the authors document the following: overall, more energetic commercials are more likely to be tuned in or less likely to be avoided by viewers. The positive association between energy levels in ad content and ad tuning is statistically significant after controlling for placement and other aspects of commercials. However, the association varies across product categories and program genres. The main implication of this study is that advertisers should pay attention to components of ad content other than loudness, which has been regulated by law.
KW - ad avoidance
KW - ad tuning
KW - advertising
KW - audio information retrieval
KW - multimedia data
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U2 - 10.1177/00222437211067802
DO - 10.1177/00222437211067802
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85124728078
SN - 0022-2437
VL - 59
SP - 840
EP - 859
JO - Journal of Marketing Research
JF - Journal of Marketing Research
IS - 4
ER -