ABSTRACT
Video advertising is increasingly prevalent, appearing in more and more places across the web and on social media. These advertisements often are viewed without sound, which possibly affects their effectiveness and meaning. This article draws on advertising and screen-media research and analyzes advertisements drawn from both articles and an agency dataset. It also includes interviews with advertising professionals experienced with soundless video to build novel understanding of the phenomenon of soundless advertising. The authors' analysis reveals four strategies and associated operational tactics that advertisers can employ to develop more successful advertisements for soundless environments.
MANAGEMENT SLANT
Video advertisements created for a sound-on environment typically do not perform well when viewed without sound, and subtitles typically are not an effective solution.
To be successful in an online environment, video advertising should be designed with the assumption that it will be played soundlessly.
Silence removes an important source of information for viewers and necessitates the use of compensatory strategies to remain effective.
Advertising testing should be conducted with sound both on and off.
INTRODUCTION
Video advertising is a growing form of online advertising, with spending increasing by 85 percent from 2014 to 2016 (Interactive Advertising Bureau, 2016) and expected to grow at a faster rate than other forms of online display advert ising (eMarketer 2017). This is not surprising given increases in bandwidth and a general shift toward watching video online. The trend is most apparent among millennials and teens, who watch 47 percent and 64 percent less television, respectively, than adults 35 and older (O'Niel-Hart and Blummenstein, 2016). Leveraging the popularity of online video, advertisers are placing video advertisements in more places across the web and social media.
In many of the places where video advertisements appear, online sound does not play automatically. This is sometimes by design, in keeping with industry guidelines stating that sound should play only when the context means consumers expect sound (Interactive Advertising Bureau, 2015). Many social-media sites similarly require users to click to enable sound for video advertisements, although most users do not. Advertising agencies estimate that between 82 percent and 94 percent of users watch videos on social media soundlessly, because sound in some environments, such as workplaces or public transit, is socially undesirable (Maheshwari and Benner, 2016). Although Facebook reenabled sound on videos in 2017, it gives users control over this feature and respects mute settings. Even with sound reenabled, a majority of users likely will continue to view advertisements without sound.
Viewing a video advertisement without sound likely changes an advertisement's effectiveness, reducing its ability to attract attention and be understood. This may make soundless video advertisements doubly avoided, because consumers in an online environment already are prone to advertisement avoidance (Cho and Cheon, 2004; Duff and Faber, 2011; Edwards, Li, and Lee, 2002). Silence also might affect an advertisement's very meaning.
Advertisements for a soundless environment therefore require different strategies. Facebook's own internal research shows that “41 percent of videos were basically meaningless without sound” (Maheshwari and Benner, 2016). Industry articles also outline tips for agencies, further reinforcing that soundless advertisements require a different approach (Hall, 2016). Although existing academic literature suggests that going soundless might hurt a video advertisement's performance (MacInnis, Moorman, and Jaworski, 1991; Mackenzie, 1986), research has yet to address the phenomenon of soundless online video advertising.
In this article, the authors identify strategies that will help advertisers develop successful video advertisements for soundless online environments. These strategies include anything that fosters persuasion in the absence of sound, but they especially focus on gaining and maintaining viewer attention. The authors adopted a qualitative approach utilizing three sources of information. They developed preliminary findings using both advertisements drawn from an industry dataset and advertisements identified in industry publications. They corroborated their findings through interviews with advertising professionals who create and distribute soundless advertisements. Triangulating among these data, the authors explicated four strategies for creating effective videos for silent environments.
The Power of Sound: Research from Advertising and Screen Media
Sound is one tactic advertisers use to increase consumers' motivation, opportunity, and ability to process advertisements (MacInnis et al., 1991; Mackenzie, 1986). Sound, along with a variety of other techniques, influences motivation to attend to a particular advertisement. Opportunity can be enhanced through repetition of the advertisement itself as well as repetition of key information in an advertisement. Finally, creating advertisements that are easier for consumers to understand can enhance consumers' ability to understand. One can achieve this by linking an advertisement to information already established in consumers' memory or by using techniques such as jingles, analogy, and demonstration to ease learning of new information.
Sound demonstrates a range of possible effects on all three drivers of advertisement processing. Loudness affects the amount of attention and subsequent motivation to view an advertisement (Berlyne, 1960; Kellaris, Cox, and Cox, 1993; MacInnis et al., 1991). Research on sound in advertising focuses on music, finding it able to create a mood, stir emotions, and increase arousal levels (Lantos and Craton, 2012). Screen-media research has found that other structural arrangements, such as pitch, timing, timbre, and tempo, influence affective judgments and mood (Boltz, 2001; Rigg, 1964; G. M. Smith, 2003). Music in film can draw audiences into the fantasy illusion of a moving image and facilitate audience identification with depicted situations (Gorbman, 1987; Kassabian, 2001). All of the effects above work to increase viewer motivation to engage with an advertisement.
Viewer opportunity and ability to process advertising also are enhanced by music. Music aids in the recall of existing memories, schemas, and associations as well as the formation of new associations (Fraser, 2014; Hung, 2001; Lantos and Craton, 2012; North, Sheridan, and Areni, 2016; Oakes, 2007; Scott, 1990). Screen-media research has found that soundtracks influence remembering of filmed events, foreshadow possible future narrative scenarios, and contribute to comprehension of story and plot (Boltz, 2001; Boltz, Schulkind, and Kantra, 1991).
Broadly, sound in film, whether music, ambient noise, or dialogue, is a powerful device that adds emotive and informative value while framing understanding and memory (Boltz, 2001; Chion, 1994; Gorbman, 1987; Kassabian, 2001; G. M. Smith, 2003). Music directs viewers' attention and assists interpretation, making it easier to understand and remember video advertising. Taken together, these findings explain music's effects on advertising outcomes, such as attitude change and purchase (Allan, 2007; Fraser, 2014; Lantos and Craton, 2012; North et al., 2016; Oakes, 2007).
Compensating for Silence: Research from Film
Although advertising research has yet to address soundless viewing, literature in screen media examines the role of silence. Without the framing, linking, and sign-posting qualities of sound, perception of a moving image might be different, with shots appearing fragmented or abstracted (Chion, 1994; Link, 2007; Lossef and Doctor, 2007). This might be why silent movies sometimes were screened with live musical accompaniment (Altman, 2007). Silence signals limitlessness, abstraction, and undifferentiated time (Brooks, 2007; Doctor, 2007; Losseff and Doctor, 2007; Picard, 1989). Indeed, films use silence as an aesthetic device to invoke a sense of dislocation or disjointedness (Link, 2007). The challenges of a soundless environment therefore necessitate greater attention to the only remaining channel of impression: the visuals (Chion, 1994).
From early silent cinema, films have used visual style to complement, experiment with, or compensate for the dynamics of silence and sound. Early silent filmmakers developed expressive visual techniques to deepen the emotional involvement of the spectator (Thompson, 2004). Distinctive backlighting, emphasis of facial expression, gesture and mime acting, baroque sets and staging, and depth of field offered artistic flair beyond the basic plot (Thompson, 2004). These devices form some of the creative palette still utilized to develop visual intrigue and prompt interest. Over time, filmmaking activity emerged that combined these expressive techniques with the movement of bodies and objects within shots, camera techniques (e.g., zooming or panning), and editing (Bordwell, Thompson, and Smith, 2016; Vernallis, 2013). Together, these visual techniques form their own pulses of movement and stasis, even in the absence of sound (Chion, 1994).
The Absence of Sound: Impact and Potential Remedies
In the absence of research that examines how removing sound affects consumers, one reasonably can assume that it will decrease advertisement effectiveness. Consumers are especially prone to avoid advertisements online, because they are in a goal-directed state (Cho and Cheon, 2004; Edwards et al., 2002; Goodrich, Schiller, and Galletta, 2015; Korgaonkar and Wolin, 1999). Online consumers see advertisements as slowing achievement of their goals, which makes them even less motivated to view advertisements (Cho and Cheon, 2004; Duff and Faber, 2011; Edwards et al., 2002).
Silence likely compounds this problem. On the basis of advertising and screen-media literature, other advertisement characteristics may compensate for a silent advertisement's inability to call out for attention. Such characteristics may include depictions of deep emotions, use of film techniques such as motion or cuts, and arresting scenes or likenesses (MacInnis et al., 1991).
Video advertisements without sound may be inherently more difficult to process. To facilitate processing, silent video advertisements might include simpler, more concrete messages and plots (Hung, 2001) and increased repetition (MacInnis et al., 1991). Advertisements also might allude to existing cultural references as well as rely on gestalt understanding (MacInnis et al., 1991; Scott, 1990). Informed by existing literature, the current research qualitatively explores techniques to improve effectiveness of soundless video advertising.
METHODOLOGY
Appropriate to this exploratory investigation, the authors adopted a qualitative approach (Creswell, 2013; Glaser and Strauss, 1967) that was executed in three stages, reflecting three sources of information. They used three data sources to enhance the reliability of the findings: advertisements from an agency, advertisements from articles, and interviews with advertising professionals.
Advertisements from an Agency
The authors obtained access to advertisements from Unruly, a global programmatic online video-advertisement distributor. The dataset included 3,484 unique English-language video advertisements aired in predominantly soundless online environments over a two-year period. On average, advertisements were seen soundlessly by 87.7 percent of viewers.
The authors sorted their dataset by in-view time, a metric representing the average amount of time each advertisement was visible on viewers' screens. They based this decision on the assumption that consumers would view more-successful soundless advertisements for longer durations and view less-successful soundless advertisements for shorter durations. This assumption was predicated on the belief that an advertisement is a key factor causing consumers to spend more time on a webpage on which an advertisement is playing. Although in individual cases other factors could cause consumers to spend more time on a webpage containing an advertisement, over a large number of advertisements and webpages, these differences should counterbalance. Given that a single programmatically placed advertisement can play across thousands of different websites, the authors believed this assumption to be reasonable.
This logic led them to select the 50 longest viewed advertisements (average in-view time of 28.6 seconds) and the 50 shortest viewed advertisements (average in-view time of 6.6 seconds) from the dataset for qualitative coding. Comparison between these two sets of advertisements should help in the identification of characteristics that discriminate between more- and less-successful soundless advertisements. There was no significant difference in advertisement length between the more-successful (M = 83.9 seconds, SD = 117.3 seconds) and less-successful advertisements (M = 96.9 seconds, SD = 107.4 seconds), t(98) = 0.58, p = .56.
Advertisements from Articles
The authors searched for articles on soundless video advertising. From these articles, they gathered a total of 29 advertisements identified as successful in soundless environments (See Table 1).
Interviews with Advertising Professionals
The authors interviewed eight professionals who develop or create soundless video advertising (See Appendix A for the interview guide). These included creative directors and strategists from small and large advertising agencies as well as freelance filmmakers and copywriters (See Table 2). Interviews were audio recorded and transcribed. Quotations illustrating the strategies identified are included in the Results section.
Although qualitative research is somewhat subjective, the analysis was strengthened by the independent coding carried out by both researchers and by triangulation among the three data sources (Glaser and Strauss, 1967; Strauss and Corbin, 2008). Also, because one of the researchers is in marketing and the other is in screen media, they brought distinct perspectives that enriched the investigation (Creswell, 2013).
The qualitative analysis proceeded in three stages (See Figure 1). At all stages involving coding, advertisements and interview data first were coded individually by each researcher before differences were reconciled through researcher discussion. The existing literature was consulted throughout the analysis process as themes and patterns emerged (Spiggle, 1994).
The first stage of qualitative analysis involved examination of the soundless advertisements identified from the agency dataset. This dataset included the 50 most successful and 50 least successful soundless advertisements, on the basis of the length of time consumers viewed them. This selection was based on the assumption that more successful advertisements would be viewed for longer times.
Each researcher first viewed each of these advertisements, performing open coding for notable characteristics of each advertisement that might explain its performance. These included characteristics such as cuts, pacing, evoked emotions, use of subtitling, salience of brands, and use of celebrities. After open coding of all 100 advertisements, each researcher then reviewed his or her coding to identify common themes and patterns inherent to either the more-successful or the less-successful groups of advertisements. This axial coding led to refinement based on patterns that emerged within and between the two groups of advertisements. It also led to the identification of more abstract categories of advertisement characteristics that suggested further potentially relevant advertisement characteristics.
The authors then viewed each of the 100 advertisements again and selectively coded for a more refined list of advertisement characteristics. Constant comparison both between advertisements and with existing literature helped distill thematic patterns (Spiggle, 1994) and led to the development of a preliminary list of strategies and tactics used in successful soundless advertisements. At this stage, identified strategies and tactics generally focused on the effect of more overt visual elements, such as cuts, camera motion, and subtitle use.
In the second stage, the authors used a sample of 29 video advertisements identified as successful in articles (See Table 1) both to refine and to extend the findings from the first stage of analysis. A process similar to that in the first stage was used, with each researcher first individually coding all 29 advertisements for notable characteristics. The researchers again reviewed the open coding to identify repeated patterns and themes. They then discussed and refined these before using them to recode the advertisements drawn from both articles and the agency dataset. They used the findings to revise and extend an emergent list of strategies and tactics used in successful soundless advertisements. This phase more clearly pinpointed the technique of referencing shared understandings as well as the use of visual rather than verbal storytelling.
Finally, in a third stage, the authors interviewed eight advertising professionals who develop or create soundless video advertising (See Table 2). The authors used these interviews to probe for additional advertisement characteristics as well as to synthesize and check the emergent findings. In addition and perhaps most important, the interviews helped the authors develop a better understanding of why and how the techniques identified through the study's analysis might operate.
The authors developed an interview guide on the basis of the findings from the first two stages (See Appendix A). Transcripts were coded according to a similar process as in the first two stages. Each researcher first read each transcript to code for new and existing strategies before turning to look across the interviews to identify commonalities and new insights.
In this third stage, support was found for the broad strategies and tactics earlier identified. Insights from the interviews provided understanding of the mechanisms causing these strategies to be effective as well identification of additional means of operationalizing them. These insights led the authors to review their coding of the interviews and advertisements once more, making only minor changes. This review, coupled with the rich and corroborating insights provided by interviewees, led the authors to conclude that theoretical saturation had been reached. They then distilled their findings into the final list of strategies and tactics (See Table 3).
RESULTS
Analysis of the three data sources revealed four broad strategies, and associated tactics, for creating successful soundless advertisements (See Table 3). Each strategy is now discussed in detail, including relevant advertisement examples from Stage 2 to illustrate key points and quotes from the Stage 3 interview participants.
Visual Rather than Verbal Storytelling
Analysis of the study's coding revealed that more-successful soundless advertisements rely on visual storytelling. This is likely because removing sound reduces one of the major mechanisms through which an advertisement can communicate. As interview participant Harry (a freelance writer and strategist) pointed out, “With a sound ad, I have the layer of effects, visuals, tone of voice, the pace of the music … With a soundless ad, you've got the visuals and the text. And that's basically it. That narrows down the possibilities of how I can play with it as a creative.”
For this reason, successful soundless advertisements tend to be simpler, relying on less complex plots. As Dan (creative director of a midsize agency) stated, soundless advertising “has forced us to tell visual stories in a crisper, clearer, shorter way.” Peter (ceo of midsize creative agency) further explained, “The key is to be visual and drive a very simple message. What is the essence or core that I'm trying to tell somebody? And how do I visually depict that?” According to Simon (film director), “the ideal soundless ad would be conceived for a soundless environment from the get-go … You would show, rather than tell.”
Huggies's “Hug the Mess” advertisement (See Table 1, sixth article) adopts a child's perspective, cleverly limiting the story to the visual. Use of a close, point-of-view shot approximating a child's line of vision contextualizes the simple, easily understood storyline of a child creating a mess and focuses attention on the child's actions and gestures. Other techniques to orient the viewer's attention evident in coding include closer shots, zooms, tilts, or blurring of all but a focal object.
Inclusion of verbal dialogue should be avoided because it either alienates viewers or necessitates the use of subtitling. Dan (creative director) said that when “writing for social you strip away as much dialogue as possible.” Actors therefore are constrained to the visual, with depiction of strong emotion conveyed through close-up shots often used to command attention and develop plot. Simon (film director) explained, “If you are getting your emotional information from the audio and there is none of that, then there is scope for performances to be heightened.”
Similar to silent cinema, actors in more successful soundless advertisements tended to make bolder choices physically, overtly miming and gesturing. Volkswagen's “Park Assist” advertisement (See Table 1, sixth article) illustrates a woman's reaction to the car self-parking through overt hand gestures and ecstatic facial expression. Dan (creative director of a midsize agency) explained the logic, stating, “We won't show someone who's a little bit irritated … We'll show someone who's furious … because seeing someone irritated is not that arresting whereas seeing someone furious is.” In a related manner, humor in successful soundless videos is limited to visual forms. Simon described how soundless advertisements “rely on good strong visual jokes—either contrasting images side by side, or fish out of water images … or slapstick.”
Reference to Shared Understandings
Another strategy successful soundless advertisements often employ is drawing extensively on an audience's existing shared knowledge. One technique observed in the data involves relying on universal human narratives. Harry (copywriter and strategist) described how “you try to find things that everybody can relate to … that are globally known. Everybody knows how it feels to be embarrassed, everybody knows kids … everybody knows happiness, joy, birthdays, things which are celebrated around the world.” Heather (content supervisor, large media agency) said that universal narratives “come across easier for the target that you're trying to reach.” Using “something that every parent goes through” rapidly conveys meaning so that “even without the context behind it or the words being said they know what's going on.”
Sainsbury's Christmas advertisement “The Greatest Gift” (See Table 1, fourth article) cleverly uses this strategy, depicting not only the festive mood but also widely shared experiences. The main character endures an awkward Christmas party and an old woman slowly counting change at the post office. In a distinctly British reference, the character suffers train delays caused by a single snowflake on the track, a common in-joke among commuters using the national rail service. The success of this strategy depends on a target audience recognizing and understanding a chosen reference. As Harry explained, “You always have to think: What's my audience? … I need to know if people can relate to the image I'm showing.”
Similarly, reference to well-known public figures or celebrities quickly can trigger existing schemas. Harry said, “If you have an ad showing Morgan Freeman or Judy Dench, you immediately have their voice in your mind whilst reading the subtitles.” Allusion to well-known storylines and characters similarly enables audiences to understand complex concepts rapidly.
A1 Steak Sauce's “New Friend Requests” advertisement (See Table 1, ninth article) plays with the complexities of modern dating. Through the lens of Facebook updates, the advertisement follows A1 falling both “in a relationship” with steak and then out again, as first pork and then many other protein “suitors” appear. The advertisement works by humorously signaling A1's ability to pair with almost anything. Heather noted that references to cultural meaning “make it easier to create content that someone will be able to identify and relate to without having to listen.”
Increased Visual Intensity and Energy
Without sound, silent video advertisements can feel slower and less exciting. As Andrew (business director of a midsize creative agaency) said, “If you take sound off, there are certain pauses, especially for comedy videos, which create a very slow feel.” Simon explained that “without audio, your film will necessarily be a bit more jerky … It will feel less unified and homogenized … Your perception of time changes if you're watching something without audio to take in.” He said, “Maybe there is less information so you can process shots faster … I think it would subtly change the way you would cut a film; definitely the way you would go about shooting it.”
To compensate, successful silent advertisements increase their visual intensity or energy. One technique evident in the data is avoiding longer and slower shots. Although such shots can feel dramatic or suspenseful with music or voiceover, without sound they can feel dreamlike, hypnotic, or, worse, tedious. Likewise, reliance on a single, fixed camera angle imparts a sluggish, documentary-style feel, inviting viewer distraction.
Successful advertisements instead employ a variety of shot types, often involving a high degree of camera motion, and are cut shorter. “Skinny Dip” for Wrig ley's Five chewing gum (See Table 1, seventh article) illustrates this, employing handheld roving camerawork, split-second editing, and varied angles to convey the rush of excitement one feels before trying something new. The advertisement illustrates Simon's assertion that without sound “you've got to really go for it…and you use everything in your tool kit from jarring and contrasting cuts, to beautiful images, to swiftly moving camera.” Peter (ceo and co-fonder, creative agency and video distributor) explained that, used effectively, “pacing can make a 30 second video feel like it's only 10 seconds.”
Continuous camera motion is another technique seen in the data for increasing the liveliness of an advertisement. Dan said, “You want to make sure that you have swooping shots, quick pans, quick zooms, quick tilts.…Because you don't have words, you have to make up for it with movement.” Hotels.com's “Piano” advertisement (See Table 1, 11th article) illustrates this, using a single, rapidly swooping shot that grabs attention and naturally focuses on the advertisement's main character. In other observed cases, aggressive or exaggerated camera zooms or shots are used to amplify emotions or visually scream. Such techniques can be difficult to create post hoc.
Avoidance or Tactical Integration Of Subtitles
Successful soundless advertisements generally eschew subtitles. Sid (freelance film director) described how subtitles make the viewer feel “like you're reading an article rather than watching entertainment. The brain has to work a bit harder … It definitely makes it less entertaining.” Simon (film director) said distraction is problematic given that “advertising is almost always so compressed, trying to tell a story that's too big for the time you've been given to tell it in [which makes you] very particular about where you direct people's attention.” Harry (copywriter and straegist) said he views subtitles as disrupting flow, diluting “the whole emotional thing, the whole fun aspect that comes with the pace of it.” The disruption caused by subtitles is especially evident with humor.
Subtitles distract attention, creating tension in viewers torn between paying attention to either the visuals or the subtitles. Simon said, “If you're not picking up key visual information, there's a real danger that you'll lose the point of the ad.” Successful advertisements slow visual action if subtitles are included.
Harry explained, “It's quite important that [a subtitled soundless advertisement] is calmed down. Because if you've got to read a bit of text, and you've got to watch a film or an animation, then it can't be too distracting.” Included subtitles, Harry said, should be “quite precise, quite clear” and focus on essential information. Gary (managing director, creative agency) said he tries to develop advertisements that “you don't really ever need to turn the sound on for it to be good.” He said he sees subtitles as a form of cheating, explaining, “Advertising that's quite well crafted tends to work without sound.”
The study's data show that successful advertisements using subtitles leverage them as a creative tool. Sid said that if he is using text, he uses “it expressively … to try and convey the emotion of what's being said in the text. If someone was shouting and they were getting louder as they were talking, the text would get bigger and bolder as it was going on.” This device changes an otherwise mechanical crutch into a visual tool.
For Dan, what works is to “bring creativity to it, to use color, size, fonts, and positioning to bring out the dialogue … The subtitling becomes an element of the creativity.” An example of this is Wendy's “4 for $4 Meal” advertisement (See Table 1, fourth article), which uses captions popping out from different locations to guide attention. The movement of the captions forces a viewer's gaze around the frame.
DISCUSSION
This article seeks to understand the challenges of video advertisements being viewed without sound and techniques used to overcome these challenges. The authors analyzed advertisements from both an agency dataset and articles, as well as interviews with advertising professionals experienced with soundless video. They identified four broad strategies to compensate for viewing without sound that are informed by existing research in advertising (MacInnis et al., 1991; Mackenzie, 1986) and screen media (Bordwell, 2002; Thompson, 2004; Vernallis, 2013). The findings build novel understanding relevant to online video advertisers while also extending existing research to a new environment.
The strategies and tactics identified both moderate and extend a previously proposed framework to identify techniques applicable in a soundless environment (MacInnis et al., 1991). At a broad level, the findings demonstrate that in a soundless environment, several of the advertisement characteristics identified in that framework simply are not available to advertisers. These include advertisement characteristics that otherwise would enhance viewer motivation, such as loud music and changes in voice or silence, as well as those that enhance viewer ability, such as verbal framings.
The findings also highlight the added importance a soundless environment places on other characteristics identified as enhancing motivation (MacInnis et al., 1991). These include characteristics such as unusual cinematography, edits and cuts, visual complexity, action, and use of metaphors. Finally, the findings suggest nuance in the manner in which some advertisement characteristics are conveyed in a soundless environment.
For instance, although emotion is still important in a soundless environment, the way it is created and conveyed changes. Because voice and music are not available, the responsibility actors have for portraying emotion increases. The same is true for directing and cueing attention; a soundless environment places that task on actors, cinematographers, and graphic designers.
Taken together, the study's findings suggest that an advertisement created for a typical sound-on environment likely would perform worse when viewed soundlessly. The strategies and tactics detailed, however, in conjunction with an understanding of how they detract, enhance, or modify aspects of the previously mentioned framework (MacInnis et al., 1991), should enable creation of more effective soundless advertisements.
The findings also reaffirm the importance of storytelling even in a soundless environment (Stern, 1994). The findings add depth to this literature, describing specific techniques for constructing and conveying a story without sound. One strategy, reference to shared knowledge to facilitate comprehension, reasserts the value of understanding an audience's knowledge base (Berthon, Pitt, and Campbell, 2009) as well as the larger system of shared meanings that culture comprises (Hall, 1997). In a soundless context, such knowledge takes on even greater importance because advertisers can leverage it to craft more efficient or more complex advertisements.
This investigation highlights the value of an interdisciplinary approach to understanding soundless advertising. Many screen-media concepts are useful for understanding the findings. One example is acting in silent cinema, which demonstrates greater physical motion and heavily stressed gestures (Pearson, 1992). This contrasts with more subtle and restrained contemporary acting styles.
Likewise, the idea of instilling visual energy in a soundless advertisement draws from and extends the theory of expressivity in silent cinema, which describes a series of artistic techniques aimed to “deepen the spectator's emotional involvement in the action” by heightening visual style (Thompson, 2004, p. 254). This is especially relevant for capturing consumer attention and increasing motivation. The concept of visual energy reflects a trend in American filmmaking toward more rapid editing, closer framing in dialogue scenes, and free-ranging camera techniques (Bordwell, 2002). YouTube videos demonstrate further acceleration of these practices, displaying an aesthetic that highlights pulse and musicality (Vernallis, 2013). Successful soundless videos draw from and intensify these editing and cinematographic techniques.
Use of essential words, rather than verbatim subtitles, offers creative potential. The authors' findings suggest that text and subtitling more appropriately are conceptualized as images (Bolter, 2003). This implies that special attention should be paid to their design and style. Unlike other contexts, text in soundless video unlikely will be read in a linear order (Bolter, 2003).
MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS
The authors provide a set of clear, readily actionable strategies for creating successful soundless video advertising. Each strategy is described conceptually and operationally, with germane examples and explanations from advertising professionals. Together, these strategies are relevant to anyone tasked with developing or creating advertisements for soundless environments.
The findings suggest changes in the way soundless advertising is approached. Current practices frequently treat soundless advertising as an afterthought. At best, a director might consider the soundless environment when filming; at worst, a junior staff member might be tasked with making post hoc edits to an advertisement created for a sound-on environment. Such an approach is shortsighted given that many of the strategies for creating successful soundless advertisements need special consideration when an advertisement is conceptualized and ideated rather than simply shot or edited. Even the most successful directors and editors are limited if an advertisement's underlying concept is incompatible with a soundless environment.
Strategists and creative directors need to be proactive when conceiving ideas, explicitly considering soundless environments and recognizing that soundless advertisements typically perform better with simpler, visually driven plotlines. Visual scripts and storyboards are useful tools to bring a visual focus into relief. Strategies for creating successful soundless advertisements work by increasing the visual comprehensibility of an advertisement, complementing comprehension driven by music or dialogue. Advertisers who improve visual comprehension likely will have their message both more readily and more universally understood.
The challenges of a soundless viewing environment call for the creation of distinct versions of advertisements. The authors' findings call for purposeful editing, with focus on pacing, directing attention, and eliciting emotions. Even advertisements conceived for a soundless environment may benefit from minor tweaks compared with sound-on versions. Any testing of advertisements, similarly, should include testing both the sound-on and soundless versions.
Finally, creative professionals, whether freelance directors or in-house creative staff, have the potential to influence the visual execution of an advertisement. The techniques outlined in this article constitute an emerging creative palette that forms a distinct visual style for soundless environments. Brands looking to excel at soundless video must find professionals who are able to “speak soundless.” In major markets, such distinct competencies might suggest the emergence of specialist agencies and professionals devoted to soundless advertisements.
LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH
As with any research, this work is not without limitations. Because the study was exploratory, additional strategies and techniques for creating successful soundless advertisements may exist beyond those detailed. Likewise, although the authors sampled from multiple data sources, including an agency dataset spanning two years and multiple countries, their data might not be representative of all soundless advertisements. The authors therefore encourage further research expanding on and developing further the strategies they outline. This might include focus groups or interviews with consumers to better understand their perspectives.
Although the authors employed three different data sources in their analysis, these data sources were not without limitations and, in some cases (e.g., Stage 1), underlying assumptions. For this reason, the authors also encourage use of additional data sources that more clearly isolate advertisements as the sole driver of differences in resulting consumer response. For instance, experiments testing and comparing the effectiveness of the techniques outlined are a natural step toward better understanding how consumers respond to soundless advertisements.
To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first academic study to address soundless advertising, and multiple avenues exist for future research on the topic. First, research could seek better understanding of the underlying mechanisms driving the effectiveness of the strategies and tactics identified. Although the interview data reported in the study provide valuable insights concerning these mechanisms, more focused research on them would help to build theoretical understanding. Such insights could allow for further generalization.
Research might draw on theories related to visual processing and perception when examining why certain tactics attract visual attention. Likewise, theories related to mutual meaning (Berthon et al., 2009) or how advertisements communicate (Stern, 1994) might help in understanding why particular strategies enable advertisements better to communicate in a soundless environment. Although experiments are a natural choice for testing underlying process, further qualitative work also might prove fruitful at this early stage.
A second area for future research to explore is moderators and boundary conditions to this study's findings. Such research not only could identify limits to the strategies and tactics identified but, more important, could help develop associated understanding of what drives operation of the moderators and boundary conditions. For instance, different viewing contexts, such as mobile versus computer, may affect consumer motivation, ability, and opportunity to attend to an advertisement (MacInnis et al., 1991) and thus influence the effectiveness of the soundless strategies identified in this article. Similarly, the degree to which an advertisement or the context in which it is placed elicits perceptions of annoyance or intrusiveness (Cho and Cheon, 2004) also might limit use of some soundless strategies. At a more basic level, the perceived relevance of an advertisement (Zaichkowsky, 1994) likely also operates to either enhance or detract from the effectiveness of the different soundless strategies described here.
Testing of these different moderators and boundary conditions could take place with laboratory, online, or even field experiments. Working in conjunction with a partner agency, researchers could use field experiments to test the effect of placing the same advertisement on different device types or websites. Researchers also could manipulate soundless advertisements purposefully to test the effectiveness of different strategies and tactics in such different environments. One could accomplish this readily through online experiments or, in conjunction with an agency, by creating distinct versions of advertisements and testing them using small advertisement buys.
Future research also might examine strategies encouraging consumers to turn sound on. At present, such an approach may be limited by people's reluctance to play sound publicly at work or on transit, but increased adoption of wireless headphones may make the strategy increasingly relevant. Certain types of appeals or frames, such as fear of missing out or attempts to arouse curiosity, may prove more effective than others (Novemsky and Kahneman, 2005; G. E. Smith, 1996).
Reactance also might be a means of encouraging viewers to turn on their sound (Brehm, 1966). Geico used a similar approach in its unskippable preroll advertisements. By explicitly encouraging viewers to skip their advertisements after five seconds, the advertiser subtly encouraged viewers to continue watching instead (Nudd, 2015). Experiments in either laboratory or field settings would be suited well to investigate the effect of these techniques to encourage consumers to turn on sound.
Finally, although this article focuses on strategies to make silent advertisements more compelling, it would be interesting to explore when advertisements actually might perform better without sound. Although quiet contexts or environments, such as offices or transport, are obvious candidates, certain types of advertisements might lend themselves to soundless viewing. Because soundless advertisements sometimes can feel disconnected or dreamlike, this might include advertisements that purposefully attempt to induce experiences such as flow (Csikzentmihalyi, 1990) or narrative transportation (Escalas, 2004). Experiments manipulating the effect sound-on versus sound-off advertising has on these variables, as well as resulting downstream effects, would be interesting to undertake. As viewing continues to shift to an online environment, understanding how consumers respond to soundless advertisements will become increasingly important.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Colin Campbell is an assistant professor of marketing at the University of San Diego. At a broad level, Campbell is interested in how the Internet, social media, and mobile devices are evolving marketing theory and practice. He serves on the editorial review board of the Journal of Advertising Research, the Journal of Advertising, the Services Industries Journal, Marketing Education Review, and the International Journal of Market Research.
Erin Pearson is a doctoral candidate in film studies at the University of East Anglia. Her work examines the marketing discourses and promotional practices surrounding American independent cinema. Pearson has contributed chapters and essays for Intellect's World Film Locations and Directory of World Cinema book series and is the reviews editor for Intensities: The Journal of Cult Media.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We wish to thank Unruly Group Limited and its insights and analytics teams for their tremendous support and assistance. We are equally indebted to the advertising professionals who shared their insights and expertise with us, as well as to Pamela Grimm and Jagdish Agrawal for their feedback on earlier versions of the paper. We gratefully acknowledge funding for data collection provided by CHASE (The Consortium of the Humanities and the Arts South-East England), and also by a Kent State University College of Business Dean's Summer Research Funding Award received while the first author worked at Kent State University.
APPENDIX A Interview Guide
How long have you been creating video ads? (if no, ineligible for the study)
Tell me more about your experience creating video ads.
Have you been involved in creating videos that are soundless or expected to be viewed soundlessly? (if no, ineligible for the study)
Tell me more about the soundless video ads you have worked on.
How do you think having the sound off affects consumers? (i.e., What challenges does this create for you as an advertiser?)
What strategies do you use (or might you use) to get around or overcome these challenges? (Ask this open-ended first, and only prompt the topics below if participants have not already brought them up):
Text
Motion
Color
Exaggeration
Allegory (reference to known things)
Emotion
Shot types
Are there any standout examples of effective soundless ads you can think of?
How do you think captions affect how consumers view soundless videos?
Would a video created for a soundless environment work equally well in a sound-on environment? Why?
Is there anything else that you think would be relevant to know about how consumers respond to soundless ads or how you craft them?
Demographic questions (age, gender, education, title, size of company).
Footnotes
Editors' Note:
The “Douglas C. West Advertising Creative Article” is a yearly contribution that salutes Dr. West's quest for greater empirical evidence of how the process of creating advertising works. Dr. West is professor of marketing at King's College London Business School and visiting fellow at Kellogg College, University of Oxford.
The JAR series honors Dr. West's oversight of—and influence on—the pages of this journal as executive editor (2008–2014) and his distinguished scholarship in marketing research and expertise in creativity. This year's selection is by Colin Campbell and Erin Pearson, who used historical data from a global programmatic online video-advertisement distributor to test ads run with and without sound. The resulting strategic insights for creative practice and contribution to research are informed by Campbell's knowledge of digital media and Pearson's devotion to the study of American independent cinema.
- Received April 8, 2017.
- Received (in revised form) July 10, 2017.
- Accepted July 28, 2017.
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