Should brands be talking about COVID and BLM? #InstagramStudy

Should brands be talking about COVID and BLM? #InstagramStudy

This year, there were plenty of opportunities for brands to take a stand on different social issues. The big question remains – how do you do it right? With many brands missing the mark on socially conscious advertising, EyeSee researchers wanted to turn to behavioral data and see what it has to uncover about crisis messaging and how it affects brand equity. Read on for a deep dive in the results of one of the most extensive mobile behavioral studies, conducted on 1800 respondents in an Instagram environment.

Great content trumps other disadvantages

Many marketing professionals think that positioning is key for getting noticed – but in fact, your Brand & Content are the most important – think about creative ways to use your brand assets and ensure that your content is relatable. However, you are not at the mercy of positioning – great content has the power to trigger a reaction in a very short amount of time – only around 2.8 seconds. It’s not always crucial that respondents spent a lot of time on your post – you can communicate well if you take care of the creative elements.

The key factor in ad retention is personal relevance. Brands can do this either by talking about relevant topics and showing they care for their consumers, or through different offers and posts that directly concern the consumer in terms of the product or service displayed. Posts that do neither of those perform poorly and are glanced through and not remembered.

Female protagonists, celebrities and CTAs grab attention the most

There are quite a bit of unexpected creative elements that consistently show up in well-performing ads. For example, showing the protagonists in a full body shot is more attention-grabbing and engaging – it increases post visibility in all industries except for beauty, where close-ups of the face are more attractive and relevant. If there’s a famous person, it will increase the viewer’s retention for +7pts compared to shots of ordinary people or posts without any characters. But, there’s a caveat: celebrities can sometimes poorly affect post clarity, likability, brand purchase, and even Instagram fit. This happens because the viewers focus on their faces rather than on the post purpose.

Ads featuring Female protagonists drive more positive emotions and are evaluated as more attractive and transparent, and this stands for Covid-19, Endorsement, and Seasonal ads in particular. We all know that a CTA is a must for grabbing attention! But we did not know just how much: including a ‘Call to action’ or an offer drives a higher focus and a better chance to keep viewers’ attention for longer than 5s.

Honest messaging evokes positive emotions, thumbs down for generic images

Facial coding uncovers what is the emotional impact of each tested post. Things connected with positive emotions are sincere, honest and warm messaging, witty copy and images, footage of animals, depictions of sport and activities. Most notably – talking about relevant topics and communicating that the brand stands against discrimination and racism and contributes to the cause in a specific way. Showing a variety of ethnic backgrounds and cultural diversity. We also saw that brand purchase is driven more strongly if the respondents and the protagonists of the ad are of the same ethnic background.

On the other hand, what causes negative emotions is unclear messaging, especially that is unrelated to the image. Generic images, very long image descriptions and text-heavy posts with a lot of hashtags, evoke similar negative feels. On the more practical side, when an offer is unavailable (unattainable), and giveaways with extremely big prizes – e.g. expensive travels or gifts – respondents find harder to believe they will win, makes these posts less relevant to them. For example, during the pandemic, ads or giveaways for discounts or accessible rewards drive more engagement than lavish presents.

Clarity leads likability and brand purchases

When it comes to Clarity, we see that some posts, like tactical offers or seasonal posts are very upfront, and people ‘get’ what they are about right away. Same thing with COVID-related posts – people are united in this struggle with a common threat. If the story is more complex, such as in some BLM posts, people were unsure about the message. It is difficult for some respondents to connect the post with a campaign, or a real-life impact – they are perceived as signaling. As soon BLM posts clarify what the brand is doing to help, these posts skyrocket in likability as well. Brand usage is also interesting – BLM posts shows great results here, that can affect shopping as well, which again proves that this topic is something that will determine where some buyers spend their dollars. Another category that stands out here are seasonal posts, since they are designed to respond to an acute, seasonal consumer need – such as sunscreen in the summer, so they have a bigger effect on brand usage.

Key takeaway: Don’t be afraid to take a stand, but connect it to your brand

Responding to the BLM or COVID-19 crisis will improve brand perceptionespecially for industries where long-term relationships and loyalty-building business models are key, such as Financial, services and strong FMCG brands. The biggest takeaway here is that BLM and COVID-19 posts can be more impactful than Emotional posts and Support/CSR posts – so think about meaningful ways to address the crises in a less generic way, more humble, more human, and more relatable to your audience.

Interested in more insights from this study? Check out the full webinar here.