When to use emotional vs informational ads

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📝 Intro

Ever wondered if emotional ads or fact-based, straightforward ones work better? 

You may have a gut feeling. Here is the scientific evidence.

New research used functional MRI (fMRI) scans to measure brain activity while people were shown different types of ads. This gives a much more accurate picture of how people react, compared to asking them.

Thanks to this, we now know what ad type would work best for your type of product.

P.S.: This insight is just 1 of the 58 insights covered in the upcoming new Science-based Playbook of Ad Creatives coming out in 2 days! 

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Use informative ads for practical products, and emotional ones for pleasurable ones

Topics: Ads | Messaging & Copy
For: B2C
Research date: April 2022
Universities: University of Granada

📈 Recommendation

If people buy your product for pleasure or enjoyment (e.g. fashion, chocolate, vacation), use emotional, eye-catching ads. For example, show a family enjoying a happy moment while eating chocolate.

If people buy your product for practical purposes (e.g. cleaning supplies, productivity software, work shoes), use clear, informative ads. For example, explain the product’s effectiveness, ingredients, price, and features.

Your ad will align with how people think of your product, and they will be more interested in it.

🎓 Findings

• People are more likely to be interested and click on ads for pleasurable products when they focus on emotions, while ads for functional products receive the best response when they are informative.

• As part of a fMRI study showing 60 headphone ads and analyzing people’s brain responses, researchers found that:

  • Ads that focused on emotional and pleasurable aspects like adventure, social value, and stress relief (e.g. showing headphones being used by athletes) increased emotional engagement and attention, leading to more interest and clicks on the ad

  • Ads focusing on practical use, highlighting the sound quality and technical specs, evoked deliberate and practical-oriented decision-making, which increased interest and clicks

  • Brain monitoring data improved how well they were able to predict an ad’s success (vs only what people said they would) by between 9.1% and 18.1%

🧠 Why it works

• Our minds process emotional versus practical messages through different cognitive pathways.

• Ads for pleasurable products appeal to sensory gratification, emotions, and the feelings we get when using a product.

  • These trigger the medial prefrontal cortex and hippocampus in our brains, which are involved in reward and memory. This leads us to form positive associations with the brand.

• Ads focused on practical benefits activate the parts of our brain used for object recognition and executive function (the middle temporal and superior parietal gyrus).

  • This leads us to think analytically and consider the need for practical value and functional benefits.

• fMRI data analyzes how our brains process information and can predict online consumer behavior beyond self-reported data (e.g. when we answer surveys).

✋ Limitations

• The research looked exclusively at headphones, showing ads that were either entirely focused on emotional or practical aspects. There may be differences for other product categories, although the principles should remain the same.

• fMRI scans analyzed the brains of 27 people. While in other types of experiments, this sample size is considered small, it’s the norm in these types of neuromarketing studies.

• The experiments did not test ads that mix both emotional and practical messaging or products that might be bought for both practical and pleasurable reasons. Other research suggests that for borderline products, ads focusing on emotions are more memorable than purely informative ads.

• The ads focusing on emotion used color images while those focusing on practical aspects used black/white images, potentially biasing results.

🏢 Companies using this

• Brands from fashion to travel, luxury goods to candy use ads aimed at triggering emotional responses, with rich visuals and content highlighting how using their product or service makes someone feel.

• Ads for practical goods and services, from tech products to cleaning supplies to productivity and cost-saving software focus on conveying key information about features or benefits, or the value their product brings. 

• Brands sometimes offer differing messages as part of strategies to position their product as functional or pleasurable:

  • While Toyota’s Corolla highlights the fuel efficiency and practical benefits of the car, luxury and sports brands like Audi and BMW focus on the experience of driving their cars.

  • In personal care products, antibacterial soaps like Dettol focus on conveying the practical benefits of their product, while brands like Dove focus on the feelings triggered by using their products.

Colgate toothpaste correctly highlights its product with clear, informative, ads.

⚡ Steps to implement

• Develop your ads based on whether you want to position your product as something functional and utilitarian, or something primarily bought for pleasure and the enjoyment it gives your customers.

  • If your product is functional, develop your ads to focus on clear, direct product information, including its benefits, features, or technical specifications.

  • If your product is bought for pleasure or the feeling it provides your customers, use eye-catching visuals and emotional wording in your ad.

  • If your product doesn’t strictly fit into a pleasurable or functional category (e.g., sunglasses, electric scooters, or smartwatches), use ads focusing on evoking emotions and eye-catching visuals as these are generally more memorable to viewers.

🔍 Study type

Lab experiment (using fMRI neuroimaging with 27 people in Spain)

📖 Research

Neural Responses to Hedonic and Utilitarian Banner Ads: An fMRI Study. Journal of Interactive Marketing (April 2022)

🏫 Researchers

• Luis Alberto Casado Aranda. University of Granada

• Juan Sánchez-Fernández. University of Granada

• María I. Viedma-del-Jesús. University of Granada

Remember: This is a scientific discovery. In the future it will probably be better understood and could even be proven wrong (that’s how science works). It may also not be generalizable to your situation. If it’s a risky change, always test it on a small scale before rolling it out widely.

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🎓 It took 3 of us 14 hours to accurately turn this 27 page research paper into this 3min insight. 

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