Content marketing continues to grow in popularity among digital strategists, and that means rising above the noise is becoming even more difficult. In order to stand out, you’ve got to be different, and video has proven it can uniquely deliver highly memorable and emotional content to a target audience. A big reason for its success? The power of sound.
BuzzStream and Fractl conducted a survey of over 1,000 consumers to better understand the emotional impact of sound and how it relates to content marketing. Survey respondents were asked to play five viral videos from the last couple of years and then pick which emotions were activated when the video was played. Each group was presented with a different viewing format. The first group had to watch the videos with sound, but without captions; the second group had to watch the videos without sound, but with captions; and the third group was only able to listen to the video’s sound and was not allowed to watch the video. Robert Plutchik’s comprehensive Wheel of Emotions was used to categorize emotions.
The impact of sound on content marketing
Sound is a strong trigger for emotion. It can have a significant impact on the listener, inspiring either positive or negative emotions, and has the power to completely change the sentiment of your content. In fact, 69 percent of respondents in the sound and no video group believed that sound had a significant impact on their emotional response. The goal of your content should be to leverage positive emotions to grab a person’s interest. Without the right sound, your content could be devoid of an emotional trigger, which impacts overall emotional responses.
Knowing that sound enables interspersed emotional triggers, marketers can leave their audience feeling a range of strong and weak emotions in a variety of ways. Applying sound to content can induce the type and level of emotion you want your audience to feel at certain points.
The emotions of sound
These eight emotions were the most prevalent in all five of the viral videos watched by our survey takers: interest, curiosity, uncertainty, admiration, acceptance, cheerfulness, amazement, and astonishment. Generally, these are positive, strong emotions that drive people to care about and share the content.
The only negative emotion we saw commonly evoked was revulsion, which fits into the disgust segment of Plutchik’s wheel. This emotion was strongly evoked when the audience was not able to view the video accompanying the sound in all five viral videos. However, when given the context of video, our survey takers did not feel negative emotions as strongly as they did the positive ones. In fact, in place of revulsion, they felt delight and serenity.
To better compare the emotions of sound in all five viral videos, we converted the results of our survey into heat maps (click on the titles below to view the corresponding video):
| The Epic Split feat. Van Damme (Volvo Trucks) | ||
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| Sound, No Video | Sound, No Captions | Captions, No Sound |
| Monty The Penguin (John Lewis) | ||
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| Sound, No Video | Sound, No Captions | Captions, No Sound |
| Most Shocking Second a Day Video (Save The Children) | ||
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| Sound, No Video | Sound, No Captions | Captions, No Sound |
| 1 is 2 Many PSA (The White House) | ||
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| Sound, No Video | Sound, No Captions | Captions, No Sound |
| First Moon Party (HelloFlo) | ||
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| Sound, No Video | Sound, No Captions | Captions, No Sound |
Sound is at the heart of every great video, and it’s a great way to trigger an emotional response—which is essential if you want your content to go viral. As a marketer, a well-executed video produces everything you want from your content—it entertains, it informs, and it inspires your audience to take action. Realizing the role sound plays in its success and tailoring it to perfectly complement your content will help elevate your next video.
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2 comments
Wowo great article Andrea ! I had no clue about lots of information you mention. Viral videos are very powerful weapon, i will keep my mind on this topic for some longer time for sure.
Glad you enjoyed the article!