Viewer Engagement in Response to Mixed and Uniform Emotional Content in Marketing Videos—An Electroencephalographic Study

Abstract

This study presents the results of an experiment designed to investigate whether marketing videos containing mixed emotional content can sustain consumers interest longer compared to videos conveying a consistent emotional message. During the experiment, thirteen participants, wearing EEG (electroencephalographic) caps, were exposed to eight marketing videos with diverse emotional tones. Participant engagement was measured with an engagement index, a metric derived from the power of brain activity recorded over the frontal and parietal cortex and computed within three distinct frequency bands: theta (4–8 Hz), alpha (8–13 Hz), and beta (13–30 Hz). The outcomes indicated a statistically significant influence of emotional content type (mixed vs. consistent) on the duration of user engagement. Videos containing a mixed emotional message were notably more effective in sustaining user engagement, whereas the engagement level for videos with a consistent emotional message declined over time. The principal inference drawn from the study is that advertising materials conveying a consistent emotional message should be notably briefer than those featuring a mixed emotional message to achieve an equivalent level of message effectiveness, measured through engagement duration.