Subtitling ads increases brand awareness by 18%
January 25, 2017
Research by AdColony, in association with Millward Brown, has found that certain brands can increase awareness of their products through subtitling their adverts.
The research analysed two versions of adverts, from brands including Disney, Volvo, Bose and Sony Pictures, with one standard production video and another with additional subtitles/text narrative. Overall, the research found that subtitled advertising outperformed non-subtitled across all focus areas for the companies tested. However, it also found notable variances when the results were segmented by verticals and KPIs, demonstrating the vital role of subtitles on several levels.
Rob Cootes, Director of Video and Programmatic at AdColony, comments: “The research highlights that more and more adverts are being viewed on computers and mobile devices without sound. Brands are tasked with the challenge of producing engaging content that can resonate with consumers, both with or without sound.”
With campaigns wanting to boost the intent to purchase, some adverts enjoyed as much as a 26 percentage point boost in intent to find more content. For one particular technology product campaign, using subtitles to communicate key product features resulted in a 23 percentage point uplift in audience understanding of the core message regarding superior materials and components used.
Subtitled creatives for movie and entertainment campaigns managed a 9.9 percentage points uplift when the KPI was brand awareness, benchmarked against non-subtitled equivalents (with subtitled creative in entertainment experiencing an 18.8 percentage points uplift of brand awareness overall).
Cootes continues: “Many mobile viewers are happy to watch content without listening to it. While this works for sports clips or cats knocking things over, for a visual that depends on an accompanying audio story to be understood, it’s a different matter.
“The research finds that subtitling does work for entertainment and FMCG brands to hit their targets and engage their audience. Imagery is not always enough to help resonate with an adverts message, so being able to communicate in another way can help to get this message across.”
The research concluded that having auto-play audio didn’t overcome the issues around computers and mobile devices being on silent. So, while creative teams or brands might consider subtitles to be intrusive, this is not an issue for the viewer. Brands need to address the campaign goals when creating the advert to identify if subtitling will be an effective tool to get key messages across.