Senior Researcher Ilona Pezenka investigates emotional reactions to video elements by using Facial Expression Analysis (FEA) via the Web Analytics Lab from FHWien der WKW.
Ilona Pezenka is a senior researcher in Marketing & Sales Management at FHWien der WKW. Her research includes the role of marketing communications in tourism. Previously, she published a study on tourist trails using geotagging on social media (>> read here). Now she has taken a closer look at the emotional reactions to promotional videos in nature-based tourism. With Christian Weismayer from Modul University Vienna, she analyzed emotions twoards an advertising video for the Austrian Alpine region using Facial Expression Analysis (FEA). To this end, she used AI of the Web Analytics Lab at FHWien der WKW, which can extract seven basic emotions, namely of joy, fear, anger, surprise, sadness and disgust, from facial expressions.
This article is primarily intended to serve as a methodological guide and show how facial expression data must be processed in order to derive meaningful results. Since automated facial expression analysis is a relatively new field of research, methodological aspects are of great importance.
Strength lies in tranquillity, but please don’t be boring!
Specifically, the video elements music, structure, content, images and language were examined with the following result:
- Music is a catalyst for directing emotions, so uplifting music leads to less sadness.
- Abrupt scene changes and complex content lead to information overload and therefore to negative emotions.
- Unexpected content only leads to positive reactions if it is relevant.
- The surprise effect decreases with the length of the video, while disinterest in the advertising video increases.
- Calm landscape and the demonstration of relaxing activities trigger positive reactions.
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Implications for practitioners
- Promotional videos for Alpine regions should use calm video elements that convey a sense of serenity. They lead to a positive reception by the target group.
- As the length of the video increases, the videos should contain enough surprises through unexpected content to keep the attention of the target group. However, it is important that the content remains coherent.
The article „Tracing emotional responses to nature-based tourism commercials and tagging individual sequences” was published on February 27, 2024 in the Journal „Tourism Recreation Research”: