5 Checks Before Your You Launch Your Video

Let's face it: this has happened to you before, maybe even more than once. You've created a video, all the brand elements and calls to action are there, but it just didn't work. Featuring your USP, your lovely branding, your infinite benefits list, the sexy product close-up and the obligatory hashtag will only get you so far. 

90% of human behaviour is driven by emotions, which means your video should too. In the environment of ever-increasing video production (digital advertsing is projected to see double digit growth through 2020) the only way to make your customer act is by establishing an emotional connection. Here's a useful revised checklist to see if you've created an emotionally intelligent video:

1) Strong First Impression.

Did you catch the viewers' attention within the first eight seconds? Our data, based on millions of faces analyzed, shows that the first impresion is a strong contributor to a video's overall success.

2) Engage throughout.

Do you tell your story in a way that holds viewer's attention? Do you surprise, appeal to sentimental memories or make your audience laugh? Telling a story is indeed an art. While humor, happiness and surprise are sure ways to engage with a viewer, strong emotions like confusion and even disgust can make your video memorable too - just take a look at this Bear Grylls example. 

3) Accurate Targeting.

So you've tested your video before going live - but even if you've got an excellent video - you need to make sure it resonates with your target audience. Unlike traditional research methods, emotion data captures genuine, subconscious responses to video, so you can see in advance who responds best, avoiding the likes of Budweiser who launched a popular ad, but not with their target audience who buy their beer.

4) Optimise the Message.

We live in a world of video clutter, and no one has an extra second for something that isn't meaningful enough. As the saying goes, "Perfection is when there's nothing else to take out" and having a second-by-second analysis of your video, you can see precisely where your video may lose audience engagement and may benefit from some creative modifications to heighten its emotional impact.

5) Know the Context.

Every brand produces videos. And once your own video is out, it will be viewed and perceived in the background of all the other existing videos. It means that the emotional response your video provokes should be at least as strong or preferably stronger than the responses generated by other videos within your industry. For this purpose, we have Normsthat are based on thousands of videos so that you can check how your video performs within its category.

Using emotion recognition for creative testing ensures performance of your video.