Happy Audience, High Attention

High Attention, Happy Audience: Understanding the Role of Platforms & Creatives on Attention, Emotions & Outcomes

Have you ever caught yourself tapping your feet or smiling without realizing it when your favorite song plays? That instant reaction is your gut at work, influenced by past experiences, which all occur in less than two seconds¹. In the world of digital advertising, this timeline shrinks even further. By the time you blink, your brain has processed a mobile ad, and before your heart beats once, you’ve likely formed an emotional response—often within 700 milliseconds².

This split-second connection between attention, emotion, and decision-making lies at the heart of our research. Together with IPG Mediahub and Amplified Intelligence, we explored how platform contexts and creative strategies intersect to drive attention, evoke emotions, and generate meaningful outcomes for brands. In particular, given the importance of happiness amongst Snapchatters, we focused on understanding the levels of happiness that consumers felt, which is identified through facial gestures like smiling or laughing.

To help untangle this complex relationship, we utilized Amplified Intelligence’s eye-tracking technology, ML-based emotion detection, and survey data to conduct a three-cell test, which delivered four creatives to mutually exclusive audiences of Snapchatters, TikTok users, Instagram users and YouTubers. All creatives tested came from the same campaign for each of the 14 brands tested. In all, our study spanned five countries (US/UK/FR/KSA/AU), 7,600 ad views, and 4,000 participants.

Platforms and Creative Work Synergistically to Capture Attention, Evoke Emotion, and Drive Performance

The study revealed four key insights, which showcases the importance of both platforms and creative in working together to drive results for advertisers:

• Platform is a key driver for attention³

• Attention + Happiness are correlated⁴

• Happiness = greater outcomes on Snapchat⁴

• Following best practices is critical⁴

Platform Sets the Stage for Attention

Within Attention research, there is a key concept, called the hierarchy of attention based on analysis by Amplified Intelligence, which is meant to explain how much attention can modulate within the cascading layers of media channels, formats, and placement. For example, Snapchat is able to deliver up to as much attention as what a mobile phone can provide but not any more than that. Similarly formats like Commercials and Lenses can individually deliver up to as much attention as what Snapchat itself garners, but not any more than that.

And when it comes to the attention that Snapchat can deliver, we know that we can deliver on high levels of it. Across ad types, including Commercials, Snap Ads, and AR, Snapchat delivers an active attention rate 5x greater than social mobile in-feed norms⁵.  The high active attention paid to ads on Snapchat is driven by the contextual and personal relevance on the platform.  Based on past neuro research we conducted, Snapchatters engage with “broad circle content” from brands/publishers, just like they engage with “close circle content” from friends and family⁶.

Attention is the Gateway to Happiness for Brands

When we took a look at top and bottom performing creatives in terms of active attention, we saw a pronounced difference in the levels of happiness that study participants felt. Higher attention driving creatives typically had higher levels of happiness⁴.

And this was especially pronounced on Snap. The difference in happiness levels between creatives with the highest amount of attention compared to those with the lowest amount of attention was over 10x for Snap, while other platforms generally saw a more muted, but still positive relationship⁴.

Attention + Happiness (on Snap) = Better Outcomes

After we overlaid brand performance insights in the study, we found a strong correlation between happiness and long-term brand lift⁴ ⁷. This means that ads that drove higher levels of happiness also tended to drive greater long-term lift, and this relationship was the strongest on Snapchat. Ultimately, we hypothesize happiness inducing ads working well in driving long-term lift on Snapchat because of the main reason why Snapchatters flock to the platform to begin with, which is to create joyful connections amongst friends and family.

Brands Must Meet Consumer Needs and Desires

For brands that are looking to elevate the levels of attention on their campaign messaging, our study helped to re-affirm Snapchat’s creative best practices, including the use of sound, prominent branding, and storytelling.