Nike's Serena Williams Ad More Engaging Than Colin Kaepernick Spot

EmotionAll^® Score - measuring facial expressions via webcam

Engagement

The ad is certainly full of contrasts, both in terms of audience response and the creative itself. By juxtaposing images - such as obesity to iron man, or ‘refugee’ to goalscorer - the ad plays with audience’s emotions, creating tension - particularly among men. This interplay asks the audience to be more contemplative than entertained.    

The continuous edits between ordinary people and sports stars is a similar technique used in Nike’s ‘Londoner’ campaign earlier in the year. Montages or fast edits are typically taxing on an audience, whereas these edits are held together with Kaepernick’s narration, reminiscent of 'Wear sunscreen' (“Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young”). When Kaepernick says something that sounds negative such as, "don't become the best" – negative peaks occur but they soon become positive when his narration resolves.

Male Significant Peak Engagement

(0:31 - 0:36)

Men appear to like the two scenes where passion is high bordering on physical aggression. “We’re hysterical…”. Men’s positive engagement peaks and female engagement at its lowest.

Like women, Male engagement also increases when Serena is on screen, just not quite as much as women. Male engagement really dips when it talks about equal opportunity and playing with men. Male engagement hits peak at the end, with the reveal of the campaign Just Do it and the brand.

Female Strong Trajectory Engagement (0:46 - 1:04)

The build in soundtrack, the sequence of edits and the rhythm of the narrator’s repeat of “crazy”. Female engagement hits peak at the end, with the reveal of the campaign Just Do it and the brand.

Positive vs Negative Emotion

The polarizing nature of the video creates an interplay between positive and negative emotions, resulting in a good overall engagement, especially towards the end. Male viewers had more tension between positive and negative emotions, while women largely contribute to the surge in engagement towards the end. There's significantly more tension within the responses from men, whereas the emotions from women show a significant trajectory of positive emotion. Perhaps men were having a harder time processing the topics within the ad?

With tears from the get-go, there’s significant negative emotion displayed from viewers. The narrative flips from a negative set-up from all of the barriers and prejudices that sportswomen face but the negative emotion drops once the tone switches to the positive narration and building soundtrack.

Significantly negative or perhaps contemplative emotions. Positive emotion soars from 0:54 to the end.  

Negative peaks correlate with the narration as examples are given of how sportswomen can be described as “unhinged”, “there’s something wrong with us” or “hysterical”. Surprisingly perhaps men were felt more negative towards the first half of the video.

Positivity

Women 24% more likely to smile at this ad than the average ad and 42% more likely to smile at the ad than men.

The ad attracted higher-than-average smiles from women. Men were 40% less likely to smile than women and smiled 31% less than the average ad.

Confusion

Confusion levels were not quite as high for Dream Crazy than Dream Crazier. They were slightly higher than average for men, particularly towards the end. and lower for women.

Men displayed significant confusion - 107% higher than average; whereas women were were also confused, 94% higher than avg. This may not be because viewers were confused by the content. This ad doesn’t set out to entertain in the traditional sense, the topic of gender politics in sport makes both genders engage, take note, consider, empathise with the seriousness of the topics raised; all of which generate a furrowing of the eyebrows that look like confusion or sadness

Tonal Differences

The soundtrack, “We Move Lightly” by Dustin O’Halloran is powerful but melancholic throughout, whereas Dream Crazier uses an orchestral piece that builds to a crescendo, the use of this dynamic contributes to the level of Engagement.  

There is a high level of positivity towards the second half of Dream Crazier, with an Impact score of 9/10. The audience is left with a positive feeling.

The tone of both the narrator and the build in the music are significant contributors to this Impact, culminating with the brand reveal. Comparatively, the Colin Kaepernick ad uses similar edits, with similar copy but the delivery is more sombre, slower, melancholic even.    

The slo-mo of Serena’s face in Dream Crazier accelerates the upward trajectory of the Engagement trace, as does the edit of her smashing the ball which brings the ad to its climax.

Positive Comments

Examples:

“That was a really inspiring commercial. I think Nike is outstanding.”

“This ad is soooo important right now to draw attention to the discrimination and denial of our rights at this point in time.” 

Examples:

“I love seeing amazing women succeeding at the things they set out to achieve. Makes me so hopeful for my daughter’s future.”

“It was an incredibly inspirational video. As a woman myself, I love watching women succeed in fields that traditionally only men were allowed to succeed in.”

“Powerful ad. I love showing all the obstacles in athletics that women have faced and overcome." 

Sentiment Score

+ 3.03 Women

+ 3.14 Men

70.9% left positive comments

5.6% were ambivalent or neutral

22.6% felt negatively towards the ad

+ 4.39 Women

+ 3.82 Men

79.8% left positive comments

13.5% were ambivalent or neutral

6.7% felt negatively towards the ad

Sentiment score (scale between -10 and +10, with 0 neutral)

Attention Volume

The ad attracted higher-than-average levels of attention from both men and women. Altogether, 86% of viewers were attentive to the content.

The ad attracted slightly higher-than-average attention levels from both men and women. Altogether, 83.6% of viewers were attentive to the content.

Measured using webcams to track body language and eye movements. Attention volume shows the average volume of attention respondents paid to the content. For example: A score of 50% means that throughout the video half of the viewers were attentive to the content on average.