Original article was published on the WARC website 

For brands looking to stand out in a crowded market, it’s not just what you sell – it’s how you make people feel. Think of Apple and the inspiration it evokes, Nike and its empowering spirit, or Coca-Cola, instantly linked to moments of happiness and togetherness.

But what happens when a brand makes you feel one way on TikTok and completely differently on YouTube? Instead of a consistent emotional profile across all its channels, the brand’s message becomes fragmented – diluting its impact and confusing its audience. 

This is exactly what we found at DAIVID when we examined nine major soft drink brands across multiple social platforms. Striking inconsistencies were found in how some advertisers made their audiences feel from one channel to the next. Many brands were delivering what we call ‘Fragmented Feels’ – a disjointed emotional experience that, in some cases, was actively harming brand perception. In fact, a third of the brands we assessed demonstrated this inconsistency. 

Other brands demonstrated impressive emotional consistency across all touchpoints. So, which brands got it right, and which missed the mark? Well, before we dive into the results, let’s walk through the methodology.

How was the study compiled?

DAIVID’s capabilities include the ability to decipher at scale and in great detail – 39 emotions reflecting how people feel about ad creative. And in the real world, consumers don’t judge a brand by one TV ad but instead by the many and varied places across social media where they encounter that brand. 

Using DAIVID’s AI-powered creative data testing platform, we took a snapshot of the soft drinks sector. Altogether we assessed 200 ads from nine brands (Coca-Cola, Dr Pepper, Fanta, Gatorade, Mountain Dew, Lucozade Energy, Pepsi, Red Bull and Sprite) across four different channels (YouTube, TikTok, Facebook and Instagram). As well as the emotions felt by viewers, we also looked at the predicted attention levels and impact on various brand metrics, such as correct brand recall and purchase intent. Overall effectiveness was also measured using DAIVID’s Creative Effectiveness Score (CES) – a composite metric combining attention, emotion and memory ranked out 10.  

This wasn’t the polished, agency-approved brand soul seen in pitch decks or brand books. Instead, we looked at the raw, real-world expression of each brand across social media – the messy, multi-channel reality, warts and all. Here’s what we found. 

Who Fizzed And Who Fell Flat?

Of the nine brands examined, Coca-Cola led with an aggregate Creative Effectiveness Score (CES) of 6.1/10, closely followed by Gatorade with 6/10. Both well above the CES norm of 5.8. They actually all performed pretty well, but the lowest performer in this snapshot was Mountain Dew, with an average CES of 5.7. 

Pepsi scored below average, and, interestingly, that aligns with real-world sales data, where the brand has recently lost its long-held second-place position to Dr Pepper.

But once you get past the red meat of winners and losers, a rich story is revealed in the data; brands that make us feel the same, irrelevant of channel, are more effective. 

Consistency Not Confusion

In this table are the top 5 emotions that each brand evoked across their disparate ad creative in order from top to bottom. Negative emotions are in pink and pay particular attention to confusion.It’s a heady hotch-potch of TV ads posted on YouTube, influencer creative on TikTok and Instagram, Facebook ads, announcements, sponsorships and more.

 Notice how feelings of confusion appear across six of the nine brands. Notably, the overall effectiveness top performers – Coca-Cola and Gatorade – have no negative emotions in their top 5, let alone the effectiveness killer, confusion.

 We should also call out Red Bull for forging its own path around extreme sports and associated content. We all know the particular set up of Red Bull and Red Bull Media, so if you’ve got thousands of hours of brand-congruous footage up the sleeve of your wingsuit, it’d be churlish not to use it across your social channels. As you can see, feelings of fear and anxiety are prominent and obvious reactions to the extreme sports action, while the positive emotions are in response to the more playful stunts, like this astonishing game of Simon Says.

Confusion – The Effectiveness Killer

 When you dive into the content it becomes apparent very quickly why confusion abounds.

> Social is just another channel, and as such, it’s a place where everything a brand does will get airtime: sponsorships, brand initiatives, launches, always-on influencer creative, plus a teeming content calendar of everything from Christmas to World Lawn Flamingo Day. Followers or even observers of paid social are asked a lot in terms of guessing what a brand is trying to say to us.

> As we saw in our Super Bowl study, too many posts on social media are there without any explanation of what they are or the wider context. Perhaps there is too much emphasis on ‘getting it posted’ or filling the void with noise to feed the algorithm?

> Some of the brands, especially on TikTok, working a busy content calendar seems like they’re chasing an algorithmic daily post. This contributes to a lack of brand cohesion. This might make sense from what the platforms tell you, but from a brand point of view, just because there is a hole, do you really need to fill it?

> And that story of Dr Pepper taking second place in real world sales? Well, the sales have been driven by younger audiences, which is still demonstrated by very different creative strategies and emotional responses across the platforms.  

One final and very important word on confusion. When we assess creative using DAIVID’s 39 emotions, what we find is that when confusion comes up, it mutes all other emotions. As consumers, our creative attention and willingness to emotionally engage is at an incredibly high premium. The moment anything is confusing we instantly stop caring and scroll on.

Will The Real Slim Soda Please Stand Up?

The brands that avoided the Fragmented Feels trap were those at the top of our rankings. Coca-Cola and Gatorade both prevailed from  a Creative Effectiveness POV, as well as an emotional red thread which went through all of their comms.

Coca-Cola’s comms are remarkably buttoned up in how they make us feel: Warmth, nostalgia, joy, amusement and craving. We watched back through all the creative we tested and it’s uncanny. Content as disparate as an 8-minute Christmas special and an influencer hook up with streethearts all leave you feeling the same way. 

Music also plays a powerful part in the mood of these ads and the Coca-Cola overtures always have the vibe of a montage from a jaunty Hollywood heist film: Catch me if you can (of Coke).

Gatorade’s suite of output is also really coherent when you skip from channel to channel. 

But, flicking back through the content – both from a data POV and watching it – it’s clear there are different ‘versions’ of the brand on different channels. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing but our data points to better overall effectiveness when there is imaginative and recognisable repetition of core themes and emotions.

Red Thread Or Dead

So, what should brands take from this? That an investment in strong, core brand ideas which can be imaginatively applied to output required on different platforms doesn’t just give fluffy brand coherence but has material implications for better creative effectiveness.