Background
Contextual advertising company Seedtag partnered with glass bottle manufacturer O-I Glass to test two key hypotheses: Does generative AI-enhanced creative capture more viewer attention than base creative? And how does contextual placement impact creative performance?
Key Takeaways
Greater Attention to Gen AI
Viewers paid more attention to the Gen AI enhanced creative when shown in a contextual environment
Greater Brand Presence
Clearly visible, early branding is critical for Brand Recognition, especially in environments where the creative is competing for attention with other elements
Colour Contrast Matters
Given size of mobile screens, contrasts in colour and imagery has an impact on how easily content is processed
Viewers paid significantly more attention to the Gen AI enhanced creative, giving us confidence to experiment further with AI-generated content.
Results
Creative Performance
The Gen AI enhanced creative version captured significantly more attention than the original creative, achieving 16% more attentive seconds and 22% higher attentive view-through rate (VTR). However, both creatives suffered poor brand recognition because a small logo only appears after 5 seconds.
The original creative generated significantly more unconscious facial reactions, which was mainly due to a peak in frowning when the text appears. Subtle differences in color saturation and focal points may make one image easier to process than the other.
Environmental Impact
When viewed in different environments, the Instagram story had higher attentive seconds (9%) and attentive VTR (48%) than the version viewed on Vogue.com. It also had higher brand recognition (183%) and ad recognition (57%) although both figures were lower than expected for a generic Instagram story.
Outlook
O-I Glass and Seedtag feel more comfortable experimenting with Gen AI, given that viewers paid more attention to AI-enhanced advertising than the base creative. They’ve also considered introducing the logo earlier in future creative to improve brand recognition and maximize contextual advertising performance.
improve brand recognition and maximize contextual advertising performance
Key Findings
Gen AI creative achieved 16% more attentive seconds and 22% higher attentive VTR compared to base creative
Instagram Stories outperformed Vogue.com with 48% higher attentive VTR and 9% more attentive seconds
Brand recognition suffered due to delayed logo appearance (only visible after 5 seconds)
Color contrast and saturation significantly impact how easily content is processed on mobile screens
Contextual placement matters with Instagram Story achieving 183% higher brand recognition than Vogue.com
Methodology
Realeyes used its PreView solution to show users representing the general population the two creatives in two placements: an Instagram Stories video ad and on Vogue.com. The ads were seen by over 150 viewers using Human Measurement.