CrowdEmotion Case Study: Algorithm VS Artisan with DRUM
When it comes to creating content that matters, what is more important? Data on consumer behaviour or an experienced gut feel?
To find out, we produced three trial trailers for the BBC’s BBC Earth app ‘The Story of Life’ to see what triggers the highest emotional engagement.
The Artisan film was produced creatively by an expert director.
The Algorithm Film was created purely based on behavioural data, in this case, facial coding.
The Combined Film blended both a creative director and an engagement algorithm.
Results
Overall, the combined film was most engaging for the audience shown in both the survey report and implicit emotional response. This film brought together data and creative thinking.
The Algorithm film showed a stronger emotional narrative than the Artisan film, however, it did not demonstrate the same clarity of emotional distribution and scored low for emotional engagement. In direct contradiction, the Artisan film received a weakened rating of enjoyment from viewers but greater engagement.
The result is clear. In order to engage both your audience’s’ brains and hearts you need the artisan and the algorithm working together.
So in conclusion…
- The ability to craft engaging narratives remains with humans. For now — The artisan film was highly engaging for the audience.
- What we say isn’t always reflective of what we find emotionally engaging — Although people claimed to enjoy the algorithm film, the emotional engagement from the audience was low.
- When you combine emotional data AND creative experience you get a better result — The most emotionally engaging and highest rated video combined the two.
In partnership with DRUM we found that to create engaging content we must marry human insight with the power of data and algorithms.
Artisans and Algorithms are stronger together.
