A female model bites into a piece of chocolate, squinting her eyes, slowly savoring it. The slow-motion close-up zooms in on the model's face as she gently shakes her head, a smile forming at the corner of her mouth, looking utterly delighted...
Whether it's food, perfume, shower gel, or any other product, businesses often use slow-motion shots to elongate the model's experiential process, aiming to trigger consumers' desire to purchase.
However, a study by Yin Yunlu, a young associate researcher from the Marketing Department of Fudan University School of Management, in collaboration with Professor Jia Shi from the University of Hong Kong Business School, published in the "Journal of Marketing Research," reveals that deviating from normal speed in showcasing models or endorsers in advertising videos is not effective. In fact, intentionally prolonging the experiential process may even lead to consumer aversion.
Recently, in the selection of the 9th Outstanding Achievements Award in Scientific Research of Higher Education Institutions (Humanities and Social Sciences) announced by the Ministry of Education, this research won the "Youth Achievement Award" for its unique perspective and innovative research methods.
Yin Yunlu (left) and Jia Shi. Image provided by interviewees.
"Penalty kick" sparks research topic
During the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, VAR (Video Assistant Referee) technology made its debut on the football field. This technology provided technical basis for controversial decisions on the field and also sparked an interesting research topic.
During that year's matches, Yin Yunlu noticed a strange phenomenon: several times when there were controversial rulings, referees, after reviewing VAR footage, made stricter decisions based on the original ruling.
"There were several instances where the rulings were clearly harsher," Yin Yunlu said. "What was initially a yellow card could be changed to a red card after the referee watched the VAR footage."
Later, researchers in the professional sports field also noticed this phenomenon. They brought in some professional referees for verification and found that for the same suspected foul, the referees' rulings differed after watching normal speed videos and slow-motion videos, with the rulings being harsher after watching the slow-motion footage.
"The essence of VAR is a kind of 'slow-motion,' and perhaps referees tend to believe that players intentionally fouled after watching slow-motion footage," Yin Yunlu added. "At that time, I thought that slow-motion is not only seen on the football field but is more widely used in marketing scenarios. Traditional commercial video ads often use slow-motion to 'exaggerate' the expressions or behavioral cues of characters in the ads."
Driven by curiosity, Yin Yunlu and her collaborators began designing experiments to verify how different playback speeds of videos in marketing scenarios would affect consumers' purchasing behavior.
Cross-validation of new technologies
"Our behavioral experimental research has a clear interdisciplinary feature," Yin Yunlu said.
In their daily research, in addition to using traditional methods such as questionnaires and surveys, Yin Yunlu encourages the team to design new research methods and cross-validate using various new technologies. In this study, the team used seven new technologies, including eye-tracking studies, on-site experiments with Facebook ads, virtual reality combined with laboratory and online experiments, to study using real ads for cross-scenario validation.
To explore the negative effects of slow-motion ads, the team selected a beverage not sold in the Hong Kong market from the US market and compared the original (slow-motion) video ad of the beverage with an accelerated version, testing them on social media platforms in Hong Kong.
The results showed that the original ad using slow-motion had lower click-through rates compared to the "accelerated" normal speed version.
"In other words, normal speed ads are more appealing to consumers, while slow-motion ads may even cause consumer aversion," Yin Yunlu said.
Conducting consumer behavior surveys often faces the issue of respondents hiding their true intentions, such as in paid surveys, where people's answers may not always reflect their true feelings. To avoid such problems, the research team designed an "eye-tracking experiment" for their study.
"Eyes don't lie," Yin Yunlu explained. "In daily life, when we don't trust someone or want to know their intentions, we often consciously look into their eyes."
In movies and TV shows, there is often a scene where one person asks the other to "look into my eyes and speak." In reality, psychological research suggests that eyes are a "trust indicator," and when consumers doubt an event or a displayed product, they tend to look more frequently at the eyes of the ad spokesperson.
"Therefore, we used eye-tracking technology to capture consumers' gaze when watching ads, and found that compared to playing normal speed ads, when playing slow-motion ads, consumers tended to focus their gaze on the spokesperson's eyes," Yin Yunlu said. "This proves that consumers actually don't trust and don't like this ad."
Through eye-tracking experiments, researchers can even interpret to what extent consumers distrust an ad based on the length of time they spend looking at the model or spokesperson's eyes.
Mitigating the "negative impact" of videos
Yin Yunlu's team randomly collected ads from various platforms domestically and internationally and found that more than half of the videos used slow-motion.
"Many mainstream video ads showcase the consumption process, where businesses often have models demonstrate how something tastes or feels using slow-motion to exaggerate the sensations or experiences, which can sometimes backfire," Yin Yunlu said. "This indicates that many marketers and managers are unaware of the negative impact of slow-motion ads on consumers."
Researchers have explored the "boundary conditions" of how variable-speed videos affect consumers, meaning, if changing the video speed has a negative impact, under what circumstances does this negative impact occur?
The results showed that when there are no people in the ad, such as only small animals, cartoon characters, etc., using slow-motion does not evoke a feeling of "dislike." Consumers can instead see product details more clearly. Additionally, there is no negative impact when consumers are under "cognitive load" (environment with multiple distracting information).
In line with this, Yin Yunlu further explained that when actions in news videos are sped up or slowed down, it may attract more audience attention, but viewers or readers may not trust the news. If news headlines contain emotionally charged words, it can also lead readers to question the authenticity of the news.
From a psychological perspective, people have a standard for judging the speed of events, and if they notice a deviation from normal speed, they may perceive it as edited to persuade them.
"In terms of credibility, normal playback speed works best," Yin Yunlu said. "In situations without human behavior or emotions, such as reporting on animals, astronomy, space travel, etc., video speed usually doesn't have an impact, but when it involves news about people, it's best not to alter the playback speed." Link to the relevant paper: https://doi.org/10.1177/00222437211025054
