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Have you ever seen an ad that felt oddly relevant to your life? The answer is probably yes for most of us. But have you ever wondered whether the ad could have been as emotional with a different protagonist? Probably not, but creatives frequently have to face this question when casting for a commercial. Our friends at Studionarratives wondered about the same, and hand in hand with Synetiq - using our biometric measurements -, we were able to find some answers. To learn more about what they do, visit this website.
In this article:
How to test characters for emotional resonation?
What is the difference between the emotional responses of male and female viewers?
How to choose protagonists for your ads?
1. How to test characters for emotional resonation?
Synetiq conducts a measurement each month, where we test the fresh ads on-air the previous month. In this setup, we create two sets of 40 ads. This is an ideal AB-testing environment, where we can compare the emotional performance of two versions of the same ad. The method has two pillars: comparable audiences and comparable stimuli.
In order to get comparable audiences, we create two demographically similar groups of viewers, and assign individual testers into these groups randomly. This way we can analyse the performance of the versions on the same audiences.
Comparable stimuli means that the two versions of the ad have to be as similar as possible in all other aspects apart from the one we are aiming to examine. This is usually the tricky part, as for cost-effectiveness, more than one element can differ in alternate versions of ads. We were in a lucky position, as we worked in collaboration with Studionarratives. They created an almost identical copy of the same story, down to the smallest of details, with different protagonists - a woman and a man.
The story was centered around a parent working in a call centre, who realises they forgot the swim competition of their child during an unexpectedly emotional call. It is a highly emotional topic in itself with the potential of touching a nerve in viewers. So does the gender of the parent matter? Let’s see how audiences react to the story featuring Bernadett vs Gergely.
2. What is the difference between the emotional responses of male and female viewers?
For the following lines check our previous article and understand how our approach metric works and how we measure emotions like disgust and attraction from brain signals!
Maybe unsurprisingly, female viewers were able to identify with Bernadett more, while males resonated with Gergely - while still seeing the exact same story unfold! Let’s concentrate on the last few seconds of the story. After hearing the story about the divorce, and coming to terms with the fact that they cannot be there for their child, the protagonist voices the “moral of the story”, hangs up, and we see a closeup of their facial expression.
The last few seconds of the story with the female protagonist
The last few seconds of the story with the male protagonist
We can see two tendencies in action here.
Firstly, note how female viewers produced the same patterns of approach upon hearing the moral of the story vocalized for both films: they showed withdrawal reaction to it. The reason behind this can be up for debate: maybe they simply did not like the film being so obvious, or maybe they empathized more deeply with the heavy sentiment than men did, and it manifested in not experiencing pleasant emotions. Either way, this pattern influenced their reactions to the final moments of the ad.
Females exhibiting withdrawal reaction to the moral of the story vocalised
Secondly, let’s move on from patterns to tendencies. Our vigilant readers may have noticed that males identified more with the last moments of the male protagonist, while females sympathized with the female character more.
Males identified with the male protagonist better, while females sympathized with the female character more
The results coincide with intuition: generally it is easier to identify with characters that are similar to us. This does not mean however that females lacked empathy for the male protagonist, or males for the female character. Throughout the films, viewers exhibited complex emotional patterns and different reactions to the development of storylines and facial expressions, reacting in part to the social context in which they were shown - e.g. the helpful tone of voice from both protagonists in the first part of the phone call elicited sympathy from both genders. Nevertheless, these last moments showed a rather intimate moment, and the emotions expressed were not about making an impression on another person or character. These moments were purely about the internal processes of the protagonist, which allowed us to observe the reactions of the audience without the bias presented by the social context. The data shows that however expressive an actor may be, the more similar a character is to us, the easier it is to empathize with them.
3. How to choose protagonists for your ads?
The most basic workings of our brains prime us to empathize with characters that are similar, or at least familiar to us, meaning that it is always a good idea to try to find an actor that could be one of your target group to leverage this effect. The goals of your ad and the messages you aim to communicate should affect your choice, though: premium image communication may require showing people from a slightly higher socioeconomic status than you know your target audience to be in; communicating a diversity message may benefit from showing many different characters, etc. There are other factors that influence emotional reactions to characters, too, for example their behaviour in the ad, their relationship to other characters, their general attractiveness and even the angles they are shown from all play a part in how we perceive them.
All in all, there is no one definitive rule when it comes to casting a protagonist for a commercial, but based on our data and your goals, we can provide some valuable guidelines to consider during the process. And when you have your finalists, we can even test them, and see how they perform emotionally on different audiences. This gives our partners a glimpse into their audience’s minds, delivering unbiased insights about the likeability of these choices, and aids making the most informed decisions possible.
Sounds interesting? Contact us!
