Introducing a painkiller product. Representing a solution for a stressful financial situation. Giving a cold glass of beer for someone suffering from thirst. Sounds familiar? Situations that are shouting for a storyline with frustration and discomfort. You create stressful moments with your story, then the magical solution arrives: your product. Problems may arise when upon brand integration your audience is still under stress, leading to the unwanted connection between brand and negative feelings. Obviously, you want to show your brand as a real solution - but how to be the savior? Read our article and learn how create real frustration with your storyline, or how to avoid unsought discomfort when your product is not asking for a stressful situation.
Discomfort - where is it coming from?
Numerous articles (like this one) detail the effects of being in stressful situations - and many say, stress is good for us. Well - stress may improve concentration so that you perform better in important situations. However, maybe you are one of those who is feeling it totally differently with blocked down brain, sweating and shivering. Sounds familiar? The only difference between the two kinds of people is how they think about stress. Are you excited or stressed? The physical symptoms are basically the same: dry mouth, sweating, quick heartbeat. What is happening is that your arousal level is changing - both in the case of being excited or stressed. Add those negative thoughts and emotions to this growing arousal level; this is what we call discomfort or frustration.
At Synetiq, we measure the change of the arousal level with a skin conductance meter - basically we check how long it takes for one small electric impulse to get from one point to another in your body. Meanwhile, we use EEG to measure brain reactions - this is where our approach curve comes from (read more about approach here). Through the analysis of the approach motivation we can tell which moments of the ad elicit positive or negative emotions.
Want to learn more about how we measure emotions? Check our article!
What triggers the growth of your arousal level?
Basically, there are many factors that can result feeling excited or stressed. The main reason hides in your unconscious mind, in your memory. Although different factors create different feelings in each individual, based on the more than 5500 measured ads we can affirm that some elements elicit frustration in most of the cases. These are:
Eating and chewing: Showing people eating from a very close perspective is something that most people feel frustrated about.
Harsh sound effects: Obviously, brains react with negative surprise, when a sudden sharp sound hits the ears, just like creaking, crying, shouting or screaming. Also, maintaining (non contextual) noises can be highly disturbing. Many times hearing unruly kids falls under the same consequence on the general audience.
Unseen character faces: When we can’t see the face of an actor, especially when it sticks out of the screen because of creative framing or as an element of the storyline, it prevents viewers to decode feelings of the protagonists. When these feelings would be crucial to understand a story, it gets to frustration.
Generally frustrating moments: fighting, sobbing, fearful situations and death are likely to affect people with feelings of unease. No to mention when we see someone similar to ourselves or people we know in a difficult or embarrassing situation.
Flying objects: things coming towards our face with a relative high speed evokes the urge of flight. This is a deeply decoded human reaction relying in evolutional psychology. It is traceable in an elevated arousal level, that can be measured through skin conductance and heart rate.
Fast camera movements: quick changes of perspectives, camera swipes and darkness can also add to discomfort. Decide whether you want to shake up those feelings with creativity or you just let your story work its way out!
What can cause negative emotions?
As we already discussed it in our previous article, many things can elicit negative emotions, however, there are some basic elements that have the highest potential to undermine the positive feelings you want to elicit. Just a couple of these are: culturally distant characters, too many people on screen, quick cuts, poor lighting, weird audio or camera movements.
How to dissolve frustration?
To dissolve a stressful situation, your options are the following: reduce the higher arousal level, dissolve the negative feelings or both. In videos, usually the solution is to stop showing the frustrating element or simply swap it for something positive: a changed tone of music, a cheerful voice-over, a smiling face or a familiar thing that usually creates positive emotions (here do not think of babies and pets - check our previous article to learn more). All of these are able to turn back the tendency of negative approach and growing excitement (arousal level). Sounds easy, right? But you also have to work it out that your audience understands the shift.
For some inspiration, check this list about ads that made viewers happy!
Conclusion
When negative feelings and a higher arousal level meet, feeling frustrated is granted. Of course, the list is more excessive and many other factors can have an effect on feeling discomfort. Depending on your product and your goals, eliciting frustration can be a positive or a negative result. However, what is important is to always avoid showing or mentioning your brand when discomfort happens. Your brand should be the symbol of solution.
written by Petra Varhelyi
If you want to know more about the stressful elements or just want to find the frustrating moments in your ad, do not hesitate to contact us.
