This research demonstrates how brands can achieve both speed of branding and intensity of emotional response via short term advertising.
The research is based upon System1’s Spike Rating – a predictive score that indicates short-term sales effect over the 8-10 weeks after an advert has aired, derived from two factors: speed of branding and intensity of emotional response.
System1 mapped 20,000 UK ads from their Test Your Ad platform to see where they sat in terms of these factors. They then looked at the four extremes: ads doing well on one but not the other, well on both or poorly on both – and analysed 50 ads from each category to see what they had in common.
The research found that adverts with strong speed of branding but low emotional intensity tend to lean into performance and activation, and use left-brained features to strengthen product focus. Ads that generate high emotional intensity but low speed of branding tended to use right-brained features and employed familiarity, including a strong sense of place and familiar cultural references.
Ads that achieved both strong emotional intensity and fast speed of branding offered consistent narrative and messaging, embedded brand cues into humorous narratives and brought fluent devices to life. Importantly, previous System1 research revealed that such elements are highly beneficial for brand building, pointing to the possibility of focusing on short-term gains while also contributing to long-term effects.