Psst…We Have Your Playbook for the Perfect Ad

4 Min Read

Every year, advertising somehow becomes a bigger force in our lives. Next year, brands are projected to spend over $85.32 billion on TV ads alone – and marketing teams will stress their levels of patience, energy, time, and money to figure out how to make the “perfect” ad.

Thankfully, there’s an easier way. No longer is the wisdom locked behind the walls of the world’s greatest ad agencies, anyone can now get the blueprint to building the perfect CTV ad – one that both engages and converts customers. And it’s all thanks to the power of artificial intelligence.

To find out what elements are key to most successful ads, we fed 1,800 top TV commercials into QuickFrame’s Video Vitals AI technology, then expanded on them with insights from MNTN Performance TV. MNTN VP of Marketing Ali Haeri and QuickFrame CMO Lucas Piazza recently sat down with eMarketer to discuss their findings during a Tech-Talk Webinar presentation.

It’s Like DNA for CTV

QuickFrame’s Piazza kicked off the conversation by drawing a comparison between the Video Vitals AI technology and DNA analytics company 23andMe. “Much like how 23andMe can take your saliva and review your genetic makeup to tell you your optimal diet or lifestyle you should live, Video Vitals AI easily gives insights for commercials,” Piazza noted.

Video Vitals takes a piece of creative and breaks it down across thousands of attributes, giving real-time feedback on the successful elements of the ad – and what may need tweaking. When combined with MNTN Performance TV’s attribution, this feedback provides powerful insights to help brands optimize their advertisements.

So how did we conduct our AI experiment? First, we fed 1,800 recent CTV commercials – both 15-second and 30-second ads – that aired between July and September of 2021. Then we took this data and married it with MNTN’s performance data to review impressions, verified visits, conversions, and orders. Together, this showed us what elements made up ads that were not just watched but led to real, tangible conversions. 

People Want to See People

One key finding that jumped out – people are ready for a reopened world. Commercials with six or more people performed dramatically better across visit rates and conversions than other ads. “Perhaps people watching CTV are craving social interaction after so much time of seclusion and restricted access to others during the pandemic,” noted MNTN’s Haeri.

Haeri also pointed out that for some brands, hiring six or more cast members could get pretty pricey – which is why we analyzed speaking roles too. Good news for cost-conscience advertisers: we found that 50% of people seen having speaking roles is the sweet spot for both visit and conversions rates. This means brands could hire just a handful of professional actors to deliver lines but pad the rest of the cast with extras – keeping the costs down while still delivering viewer demand for seeing multiple people on screen.

You Can Never Make a Second First Impression

For advertisers, first impressions matter most – after all, you have only a few precious seconds to capture attention and deliver a message. Our analysis found that when it came to the hook, fear – such as creating a sense of missing out or lacking something important – generated the strongest initial response (a 34% visit rate). Unfortunately, while fear hooks, it resulted in the lowest conversion rate (-55%).

Once again tying back to the public’s pandemic exhaustion, people want to be happy, not scared. Our data showed that joy produced both the highest visit rate (2%) and conversions (7%). The message is clear: consumers are done feeling scared and uncertain, and ready to see ads promote a happier, positive emotion.

• Related: Learn more about CTV advertising.