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Creating Online Videos That Engage Viewers

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 Creating Online
Videos That
Engage Viewers
SUMMER 2015 Many companies seek to create online video content that will
become popular with consumers. But what are the
characteristics of videos that engage consumers?

Dante M. Pirouz
Allison R. Johnson
Matthew Thomson
Raymond Pirouz

Vol. 56, No. 4 Reprint #56406 http://mitsmr.com/1Sl0bAg

 MARKETING

Creating Online Videos

That Engage Viewers
Many companies seek to create online video content that will become popular with
consumers. But what are the characteristics of videos that engage consumers?
BY DANTE M. PIROUZ, ALLISON R. JOHNSON, MATTHEW THOMSON AND RAYMOND PIROUZ

THE LEADING
QUESTION
What
characteristics
THE HOLY GRAIL of modern online marketing is video content that “goes viral,” meaning that make an
it captures an enormous number of views and leads audiences to share, comment or click that they online video
“like” a video. Advertisers, marketing consultants and filmmakers have all ventured theories about popular?
what kind of content makes for a hit. The trouble is that the advice varies widely and is even contra-
FINDINGS
dictory. Depending on the expert, success is thought more likely if a video is humorous, shocking, Emotionally

dramatic, topical, warm, arousing, angry, scary, socially beneficial, cute, violent, sexy, uplifting, surprising videos
generate more
intriguing, quirky, interesting, authoritative, tear-jerking, educational, controversial or baby- and likes and views.
animal-filled. Consider showing

viewers something
One of the reasons for the wide range of recommendations is that researchers have often looked at they have never
only popular videos. For example, one study that tracked the distribution of videos on Facebook seen — or familiar
things juxtaposed
focused only on those that were shared most often, which meant that the researchers did not compare in a new way.

PLEASE NOTE THAT GRAY AREAS REFLECT ARTWORK THAT HAS BEEN INTENTIONALLY REMOVED. SUMMER 2015 MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW 83
THE SUBSTANTIVE CONTENT OF THE ARTICLE APPEARS AS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED.
MARKETING

the most popular clips with the content almost no We also coded for three content themes that we
one saw. Nor have marketing scholars reached con- hypothesized might be particularly powerful in cre-
clusions about the characteristics of other kinds of ating engagement because they are likely to induce a
popular shared content, despite the vast amount of strong emotional reaction: novelty, incongruity and
data now available. One of the more successful pa- hyperbole. The first, novelty, was chosen because we
pers on viral messages,1 which looked at forwarding know that people enjoy experiences that are new and
behavior in viral email marketing campaigns, sug- original. For example, research suggests consumers
gested that many emotions can play a role, including pay more attention to novel advertisements and
surprise, joy, sadness and fear. Another study looked public service announcements. 3 New or “fresh”
at the sharing of New York Times articles and found content creates feelings of surprise, pleasure, enter-
that still other emotional responses, such as awe and tainment and interest.4 We thought this might also
anxiety, also predicted sharing.2 be true online, so we coded for video novelty.
To see if we could clarify some of the contradic- Second, we assessed incongruity, which is the
tions, we decided to take a different approach. presentation together of two contradictory or un-
Rather than catalog a hodgepodge of content ele- related things. 5 Incongruity forms the basis of
ments found in popular videos, we examined a mix much humor, but serious videos with incongruous
of popular and unpopular videos, then systemati- content may also be more engaging than those
cally coded and empirically tested the effect of each without it. For example, the famous “Kony 2012”
element on some relatively objective and observa- video6 discussed crimes against humanity, and that
tional measures of viewer engagement. topic was juxtaposed against the youth and hope-
First, we gathered a data set of 750 YouTube fulness of the protagonist. It was not remotely
videos that varied across a wide range of topic cate- funny, yet received almost 100 million views. We
gories (including automotive, comedy, gaming and thought the concept of incongruity might help to
politics) and a wide range of success in gaining view- explain this type of engagement.
ership. (See “About the Research.”) We excluded Third, we looked at hyperbole, which essentially
music videos because they were associated with an boils down to the use of excess or exaggeration.7
exceptional number of views (in fact, 29 of the top 30 This included content that was very dramatic,
YouTube videos of all time are music videos) and extravagant or even ridiculous. Video creators hope
would therefore skew our analysis. We also excluded that, by making an over-the-top claim or elaborat-
videos longer than 10 minutes because these were a ing effusively, they can more easily get and hold the
specialized type of content likely to be governed by viewer’s attention. We believed hyperbolic content
different rules than the majority of YouTube content. might be an effective way to create a strong emo-
(Think a 15-minute-long instructional video on tional reaction and engage audiences.
using a pressure cooker, compared to a video of a
digitized cat with wings on a rainbow.) What Is Engagement?
We assigned a team of research assistants as One reason so little is understood about video en-
blind coders to watch the videos and to indepen- gagement is that the phenomenon is less than 20
dently score each on a range of attributes. Did the years old. The first real example of the power of en-
video feature babies, attempt to be funny or use gaging online content was the “Dancing Baby”
sexually suggestive content? How would watching video, created as a product demonstration by a 3-D
the video make the typical viewer feel (for example, character animation software development team.
sad or surprised)? We collected information on Released in 1996, the Dancing Baby “ooga-
dozens of different video elements and correlated chuckah’d” its way across Internet forums, websites
these with three measures of engagement: the and email inboxes.8 Though a relatively low-budget
number of times people left comments on the animation, the Dancing Baby video captivated
video, the overall “liking” index for each video (cal- viewers’ attention and became a cultural phenom-
culated by subtracting the number of “dislikes” enon noted around the water cooler and even on
from “likes”) and the number of views. the evening news. In 1998, the Dancing Baby landed

84 MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW SUMMER 2015 SLOANREVIEW.MIT.EDU

 ABOUT THE comments, and (3) the number The coders did not interact with instance, viewers were given a
RESEARCH of views.i one another or consult to arrive choice to click “yes” or “no”
We initially collected a data set On these measures of en- at a consensus, preserving indi- within the video).
of 750 English-language videos gagement, the database was vidual variation as an Finally, we coded for other
hosted by YouTube across 15 diverse: The number of likes approximation of diverse viewer elements. We identified the
categories in May 2011. We ranged from 0 to 77,152; the response. After watching each extent to which a video could
culled the set by omitting music number of dislikes ranged from video, the coders indicated the be described as containing
videos and videos that were 0 to 31,064; the number of com- strength of various emotional re- (1) people (absent or present);
more than 10 minutes long. We ments varied between 0 and sponses likely to be inspired by (2) attractive people; (3) animals;
base our conclusions on a final 68,254; and the number of the content. We focused on six (4) babies; (5) anthropomor-
sample of 622 videos. views ranged from 39 to basic emotions: joy, love, sad- phized content (for instance,
First, one independent 8,094,236, with a median of ness, fear, anger and surprise. a pony playing the trumpet);
coder (in other words, not one approximately 58,000. These We also assessed a series of (6) stunts and amazing feats
of the researchers and there- engagement metrics were control variables. Based on infor- (such as a monster truck doing
fore blind to the hypotheses) strongly correlated (r = .66 to mation provided by YouTube a back flip); (7) music; (8) sexually
compiled a database of viewer .83, p < .01), but we examined about the source of each video, suggestive imagery; (9) humor;
engagement statistics for each them separately. None was the coders judged whether it (10) disgusting imagery (for in-
video. Given our definition (see normally distributed. was likely a private or commer- stance, rats in a coffee shop or a
“What is Engagement?”), we Three experienced research cial undertaking. They also coded mysterious object in a juice box);
used three proxies in the You- assistants, also blind to the hy- whether the video contained a (11) satire (such as a spoof of a
Tube context: (1) the number of potheses, classified the features specific call to action (for exam- political debate or a spoof of an
“likes” minus the number of of the videos. Each of these cod- ple, a URL within the video ad campaign); (12) a serious
“dislikes” (for an overall “lik- ers viewed every video at least inviting a user to click for more tone (for instance, a landslide
ing” measure, something that once and rated it on many di- information) or a specific behav- occurring on a railway line);
probably approximates how mensions according to a ior requested (such as a petition or (13) references to an under-
positive or negative consumer classification scheme that we to sign) and whether there was dog (for example, a storyline
attitudes are), (2) the number of provided, as described herein. an interactive component (for about bullying).

on the hit TV comedy “Ally McBeal,” cementing than amateurs at creating compelling content. We
the video’s status as a cultural icon. found no difference in the aggregate number of
Perhaps because the phenomenon is relatively comments between homemade and commercially
young, scholars have not yet even reached a consen- created videos. While branded videos tend to be
sus about what engagement is,9 and we won’t try to liked more, they are also disliked more.
settle that debate here. We take a broad view, and The presence of babies also did not have any im-
define engagement as behavior that includes shar- pact on views or comments. Sure, babies are cute and
ing but also extends to other forms of measurable give people warm feelings, but they don’t seem to in-
user involvement. This view is in line with TV ad- crease viewer engagement. Safe creative choices are
vertising norms, which link engagement loosely to less risky, but because they don’t generate much
attention and viewer interaction.10 Ultimately, it emotion, they are also less likely to engage.
seems likely that different engagement-related be- Likewise, videos of animals do go viral some-
haviors — commenting, sharing, “favoriting,” times, but probably not because they contain
“liking” and so on — are highly correlated.11 For animals. Rather, we think engagement with animal
this study, we measured engagement using You- videos happens because many of these videos
Tube commenting, liking and viewing behaviors. contain animals doing something surprising. In
These measures of engagement were readily avail- other words, it’s not about the animal per se but
able for the full range of videos we studied (both about the feeling of surprise inspired by using novel
successful and unsuccessful), which allowed us to or incongruous content such as Grumpy Cat,12 an
perform a representative content analysis. apparently frowning cat whose owners signed an
endorsement deal with Nestlé Purina PetCare. One
Myths Dispelled might think that anthropomorphized animals such
Our study allowed us to dispel a number of myths as dancing dogs, trumpet-playing ponies or talking
about online videos. For one thing, when it comes mice would be old hat by now, but it seems not.
to garnering views, professionals seem no better Among Internet viewers, all those talented animals

SLOANREVIEW.MIT.EDU SUMMER 2015 MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW 85

MARKETING

are apparently still novel and incongruous enough viewers. Perhaps they have become a cliché.
to inspire engagement. Our findings that babies Other kinds of content did drive more com-
and animals in general are not particularly effective ments and views but could be problematic for
are consistent with other research.13 advertisers. Satire was associated with hyperbole
We also found that attractive people don’t engage and feelings of anger and with high levels of both
viewers particularly well. Videos with attractive comments and views. If the goal is to engage view-
actors were linked to lower levels of surprise, which in ers by creating anger-inducing content, satire
the context of online videos is not a good thing. seems to be a good way to stir up a hornet’s nest.
Maybe this is because it’s hardly unusual to see beau- People also liked what we called “stunts and
tiful people in front of the camera. In fact, it’s perhaps amazing feats.” Watching other people do remark-
entirely too expected, which makes it an ineffective able things gave viewers feelings of surprise and
way to get people’s attention. Even sexually suggestive sometimes fear, which didn’t seem to hurt engage-
content doesn’t seem to especially interest people. ment and led to increased views. This finding
Nor are people especially interested in seeing probably explains why the video of Felix Baumgart-
stories about the triumph of underdogs. We looked ner performing the world’s highest skydive was one
at a lot of videos that contained the idea of the un- of the top 10 videos of 2012.14
derdog and found evidence that they don’t engage Disgusting content also seems to boost views. If
it seemed exaggerated, viewers sometimes felt
angry, but other times it was seen as novel, incon-
gruous and surprising — and led to more liking
and views. It is likely a polarizing creative choice,
repelling certain viewers (such as older consumers)
while attracting others (such as teenagers).
Finally, anger- and fear-inducing content seem
to trigger more views, but make a sad video and
you’ll probably cry alone.

The Element of Surprise

What matters most? Surprise!
In our study, emotionally surprising videos gen-
erated liking and views more than any kind of
specific content element we studied. Surprise had
indirect effects, too. In addition to the direct posi-
tive effect surprise had on liking and views, it was
linked to fear. Frightening videos got significantly
more views. This probably does not reflect a “hor-
ror movie” effect (where audiences enjoy being
frightened) because the overall liking index of such
videos also went down. This suggests that fearful
content can increase views but at the risk of gener-
ating negative attitudes, whereas content that is
surprising but not scary doesn’t seem to have a
downside, because both liking and views increase.

Hyperbole, Incongruity and Novelty

We started this study with three ideas about how a
strong emotional response like surprise might be
created: novelty, incongruity and hyperbole. No

86 MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW SUMMER 2015 PLEASE NOTE THAT GRAY AREAS REFLECT ARTWORK THAT HAS BEEN INTENTIONALLY REMOVED.
THE SUBSTANTIVE CONTENT OF THE ARTICLE APPEARS AS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED.
 When it comes to garnering views, professionals seem no
better than amateurs at creating compelling content. We
found no difference in the aggregate number of comments
between homemade and commercially created videos.

matter how we looked at it, there was never a con- two factors suggest that if businesses create com-
nection between hyperbole and surprise. This pelling video content, then pushing this content to
suggests that in terms of creating unexpected or brand fans or other key influencers might result in
fresh content, exaggeration is not the way forward. a cascade of sharing.
However, hyperbole had effects that we didn’t an- Other researchers have found that videos with
ticipate: We found it correlated with increased superior creativity are better liked and are both for-
anger, which in turn boosted comments and views. warded and viewed more.17 This research doesn’t
This suggests that using exaggerated content may provide clear definitions of what is meant by creativ-
earn views, but at the expense of angering custom- ity,18 but we speculate that our study might provide
ers. Perhaps some “extreme” brands or certain clarification: Creativity often is evident in contexts
types of organizations (for example, political cam- where something is novel or juxtaposed for a dra-
paigns or nongovernmental organizations) can use matic or comic effect, such as a hamster eating a tiny
hyperbolic themes without fear of damage to their slice of pizza off of a china plate on a picnic blanket.19
reputation, but for most business-content produc- Our results confirm that both approaches are likely
ers, this option will be problematic. The creative to be effective in engaging audiences because of their
choices most strongly linked with hyperbole were powerful influence in surprising viewers. What else
satire and disgusting content, whereas nonsatiric might make a video seem more creative? Our re-
humor was not. search suggests some candidates in elements such as
When we looked at novel and incongruous con- humor, stunts and amazing feats, and disgusting
tent, we found that both were associated with content, which all drive higher views.
feelings of surprise, which increased views and lik- Much of the academic research on viral videos
ing. This suggests to us that if a marketer’s goal is to has tried to contribute a better understanding of the
get viewers’ attention by surprising them, they have role of emotions in the decision to share a video by
two good choices: Show them something they have focusing on the intensity of the emotion that a per-
never seen before, or show them two things they are son feels watching a video and whether that emotion
familiar with but in an original, juxtaposed way — to is positive or negative. For example, the results of
“make it new,” as the poet Ezra Pound once advised. several recent papers seem to suggest that more
emotionally arousing content is shared more, but
Why Do People Share Videos? being positively arousing (for example, hilarity)
A final important question, but one that goes be- generates more sharing than being negatively arous-
yond the scope of this study, is why people share ing (for example, shock).20 The main conclusion of
videos. Recent research has shown that people are these studies, as in ours, is that, while it pays to be
more likely to share videos linked to brands they intense, to be intense in a positive way usually pays
like.15 This makes sense, because a consumer who off. These results are largely consistent with ours
feels connected to a particular brand will do all and seem to point in the same direction: If emotion-
sorts of exceptional things for that brand, such as ally intense videos prompt more sharing — whether
paying a premium for it and recommending it to positive or negative — then, generally speaking,
friends. We also know that people prefer to share those videos are watched more often.21 For exam-
videos that they have received from their own ple, we find that anger-inducing videos can lead to
friends and family because it’s easy and safe to pass high numbers of views, just as joy-inducing ones
along something that is socially sanctioned.16 These can. But our research suggests that an element of

SLOANREVIEW.MIT.EDU SUMMER 2015 MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW 87

MARKETING

surprise, a highly arousing emotion that can be positively correlated; see A.J. Mills, “Virality in Social
either positive or negative, may produce the stron- Media: The SPIN Framework,” Journal of Public Affairs
12, no. 2 (May 2012): 162-169.
gest viewer reaction of all.
12. CNN, “Grumpy Cat Goes From Meme to the Big
Screen,” May 30, 2013, www.youtube.com.
Dante M. Pirouz and Allison R. Johnson are assistant
professors of marketing at Ivey Business School at 13. K. Nelson-Field, “Viral Marketing: The Science of
Western University in London, Ontario, Canada. Sharing” (Victoria, Australia: Oxford University Press
Matthew Thomson is the R.A. Barford Professor of Australia & New Zealand, 2013).
Marketing and an associate professor of marketing at 14. D. Hurwitz, “Watch: YouTube’s Most Popular Videos
Ivey Business School. Raymond Pirouz is a lecturer in of 2012,” Dec. 21, 2012, www.usatoday.com.
marketing at Ivey Business School. Comment on
15. J.L. Hayes and K.W. King, “The Social Exchange of
this article at http://sloanreview.mit.edu/x/56406,
Viral Ads: Referral and Coreferral of Ads Among College
or contact the authors at smrfeedback@mit.edu.
Students,” Journal of Interactive Advertising 14, no. 2
(2014): 98-109; and J. Huang, S. Su, L. Zhou and X. Liu,
“Attitude Toward the Viral Ad: Expanding Traditional Ad-
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Current Issues & Research in Advertising 2, no. 1 (1979): gate, Westoby and Page define creativity in terms of
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and K. Newstead, “The Emotions that Drive Viral Videos,”
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7. L. Cano Mora, “All or Nothing: A Semantic Analysis of
21. The results do, however, suggest some interesting
Hyperbole,” Revista de Lingüística y Lenguas Aplicadas 4
research questions. For example, Nelson-Field, Riebe and
(October 2010): 25-35.
Newstead suggest that sad videos may be shared more,
8. Awesome, “Dancing Baby,” 2010, whereas our data suggests sad videos are watched less.
http://knowyourmeme.com. Between the two, there is a logical disconnect that bears
examination. For example, could it be that if people know-
9. For a good discussion, see B.J. Calder, E.C. Malthouse
ingly receive a link to a sad video, most prefer not to
and U. Schaedel, “An Experimental Study of the Relation-
watch it in order to maintain their mood?
ship Between Online Engagement and Advertising
Effectiveness,” Journal of Interactive Marketing 23, i. The number of views does not reflect differences in
no. 4 (November 2009): 321-331. viewership composition or social transmission (in other
words, sharing). For example, it does not distinguish
10. R.G. Heath, “Emotional Engagement: How Television whether one person has viewed a video many times or
Builds Big Brands at Low Attention,” Journal of Advertis- whether many people have viewed a video only once.
ing Research 49, no. 1 (2009): 62-73.
11. Business scholar A.J. Mills argues that the willingness Reprint 56406.
to consume is highly related to the willingness to dis- Copyright © Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2015.
tribute — meaning sharing and views are likely to be All rights reserved.

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