PMG quick-service restaurant (QSR) brand clients craving new CTV ad targeting tactics got their fill, marking success with campaigns that used AI-powered emotion-based contextual segments from Wurl to align ad creatives with content.
Wurl introduced its BrandDiscovery product earlier this year. It uses AI to analyze scene-level information in content to identify emotions conveyed closest to the ad break in real-time. Wurl’s tool also works to analyze ad creatives to figure out which emotions brands aim to align with and then target ads next to run next to the right content at the right time on CTV, so ads will resonate and be more effective.
It’s a form of contextual targeting, which unlike other methods, relies on the programming someone is watching rather than personal identifiers. There are other types of contextual targeting, such as by genre of content (i.e. sports fans,) or place or time of day. But using AI to align the emotion of ads with that of content could be particularly potent combination.
The work with independent media agency PMG for its QSR clients produced results, including statistically significant incremental lifts in store visits and sales, that give credence to the approach and Wurl’s tech.
Wurl CEO Ron Gutman sat down virtually with StreamTV Insider to discuss the campaign, benefits and the why behind emotional resonance with content working for CTV advertising.
Lifts in store visits, sales
While the company didn’t share specific names, multiple QSR brands and ad creatives were involved in the full-fledged CTV campaigns that PMG ran using Wurl’s emotion-based contextual targeting.
Results from the case study are for a two-month period in March of April, during which time more than 9 million impressions ran in select designated market areas across the country. Innovid was also involved in the case study, where PMG utilized the vendor’s dynamic ad insertion products to to deliver the right ads against the right content in real-time. Campaigns ran on premium CTV impressions available through Wurl’s supply of inventory from CTV publishers and streamers, largely in the FAST space.
After ad creative analysis to zero in on what emotions they evoke and what emotions PMG wanted to target, the partners landed on targeting content that conveyed emotions related to hunger and cravings to place QSR brand ads and Wurl created a custom contextual segment.
Using the emotion-based targeting for QSR campaigns, PMG found a 40% bump in incremental store visits and 48% lift in incremental sales, as measured by zip code-level geo-targeting and credit card information by measurement partner InMarket.
And with successful results, the campaigns turned into evergreen and continued to run after the case study period concluded.
It’s not the first time PMG has turned to contextual targeting for QSR clients’ CTV campaigns. In June it boasted positive results from work with IRIS.TV for a Carl’s Jr. CTV ad campaign.
High anticipation gets high marks for food & beverage
On Wurl’s end it used GenAI to evaluate emotion in both the ads and content closest to the ad break.
For PMG It created custom emotion-based segments, where Gutman called out identifying “high anticipation” as a target (i.e. content that creates or conveys high anticipation for viewers just before going into an ad break).
Wurl found this emotion segment works well for any food and beverage brand, not just QSR, he noted.
Sports as a genre might be the first content target that comes to mind, where there’s often anticipation as fans watch game action. However, the “high anticipation” emotion-focused segment worked even better than targeting contextually by genre like sports.
“Sports as a genre is good, but it’s a proxy for high anticipation,” Gutman said.
High anticipation emotion-based segments enable broader targeting than by sports channel and can be less expensive to place ads than sports channels. And emotions tied to high anticipation can be found across many types of content, such as drama and evening news. Wurl’s AI tech allows it to analyze content (including video, music, text, tone, and more) before ad breaks in real-time across FAST channels and streaming publishers, meaning it can align very closely to emotions people feel at a certain moment. And with AI can “very accurately know they feel as they’re going into the ad break.”
Gutman has a biological theory as to why the contextual emotional resonance targeting tactic is successful (more on that later and check out his blog here). He acknowledged there isn’t definitive evidence that it’s correct but said “based on results, it’s working.”
CTV contextual targeting based on emotion can influence brand recognition and top funnel awareness that’s then later tied to business outcomes. The tactic doesn’t provide 100% attribution but provides statistical attribution, Gutman noted, as seen by the significant increases in PMG QSR client incremental store visits and sales in the case study.
Others have been looking to contextual ad targeting for CTV, including emotion-based tactics, such as Disney’s Magic Words (which is similar to BrandDiscovery but Disney-specific), the contextual CTV deal library from IRIS.TV and recent contextual content metadata moves by Nielsen’s Gracenote.
The brains behind emotion-based targeting
As to the why behind Wurl’s success with emotion-based segments, it’s where a bit of theory, brain science, and Large Language Models (LLMs) trained on emotion come into play.
Gutman, who is not a trained scientist, cited the amygdala’s role in forming memories and in his blog made the argument that machines (aka LLMs used for genAI) now understand emotions better than humans – all going to the point of why CTV and ads that match emotional resonance of content, are effective.
Per the blog, an effective ad triggers emotions that are stored in the brain with sights and sounds of the creative attached to the brand. Together those are stored in the brain as a thought.
“Later, when the thought is retrieved, it comes with the emotions attached,” wrote Gutman. “I’d argue that CTV’s ability to evoke emotions that can be ingrained into thoughts related to the brand is a primary reason that the medium is so effective.”
Employing emotion to connect or affect viewers is nothing new to advertising creatives, but CTV and AI are enabling Wurl to get more specific in terms of how consumers might be feeling and when based on the content they’re watching.
Coming back to the PMG case study and positive results, speaking to StreamTV Insider, Gutman noted hormones controlled by the brain, specifically in the amygdala, where low dopamine can result in high anticipation, meaning waiting for something to happen, and is often associated with when someone has a craving.
This ties back to that emotional-based targeting of matching ads and content that evoke or convey high anticipation and cravings, for QSR brands.
Gutman cited eating as one of the best or most common ways to regulate that low dopamine-induced craving (or “emotional hunger”). He described a theoretical scenario where a viewer saw the QSR advertisement at a time of high anticipation because it aligned with content evoking that emotion or conveying cravings, then a few days later they’re hungry and walking by that QSR restaurant.
“They want to solve the hunger, they want to solve the regulation of dopamine, and they’ll go in,” he said.
Now as mentioned, Gutman can’t say for sure that this is what prompts a store visit or sale after seeing a brand’s ad after a certain moment in content but the “why” aside, increases seen in the case study are statistically significant and show emotion-based contextual targeting produces positive results.
“We see 40% higher in-store visits and 48% higher increase compared to the benchmark if you don’t have the emotional resonance,” Gutman said. “So just finding people [watching content] with high anticipation increases the association with the brand.”
Notably, emotion-based targeting was PMG’s “most performant CTV strategy for boosting store visits for their QSR clients,” according to Wurl.
Using emotion for positive attention
Wurl also found matching emotional resonance of ads and content to target viewers has positive impacts on the increasingly key metric of attention.
Gutman cited results of 2.5x less ad abandonment (aka switching the channel or leaving the room) when the targeting tactic is present.
Using emotions to connect, build brand affinity or prompt action is nothing new to the ad industry, but the ability to tie emotion in ads to emotion in content right before the break – so that the message with the right mood lands at the right time – on CTV at scale, and then tie that emotional resonance to performance metrics, is. Because even if an ad is conveying the emotion it intends to and consumers do pay attention, if it’s placed in a break right after a scene in content that doesn’t match the mood or emotion, there could be a negative impact on the brand.
“Marketers don’t want their ads to be like the awkward person who walks into a room laughing when everyone else is crying,” wrote Gutman in his blog.
And contextual targeting, including by emotion, doesn’t have to be the only tactic advertisers use as there’s the option to add an audience if desired and the ability to retarget campaigns.
Essentially, it doesn’t matter what targeting methods marketers choose, Gutman said. But “you always get better results” if there’s also emotional resonance, he contends.
There are no data fees for BrandDiscovery and use of Wurl’s emotion-based data segments is free of charge. It creates emotion-based PMP segments available through SSPs and major DSPs where advertisers or agencies can choose the emotions they want to target and bid programmatically.
Costs were also a benefit highlighted by PMG.
“The best part? We were able to optimize our CTV targeting strategy without needing to allocate budget to DMP costs,” stated Doug Paladino, programmatic director at PMG, in the case study.
Hard to move a big industry
However, despite marketers and agencies’ clear understanding of the importance of emotion as it relates to TV advertising and connecting to consumers, the CEO said it’s hard to move a big industry.
He cited no lack of interest from agencies in AI-powered emotion-based contextual targeting for CTV but thinks it will take time for those used to traditional linear TV to transition to new ways of doing things.
“It’s a delayed response for advertisers to move from the traditional way of thinking on how you buy advertisements on cable and satellite into streaming, into digital CTV, where you can actually target and retarget, frequency cap and measure the outcome,” Gutman said.
In his view, while the ecosystem still has challenges, advertisers need to understand they have a lot more options in CTV, which offers desirable 30-second unskippable ad formats akin to traditional TV alongside benefits of digital.