AD BATTLE #6 Delhaize vs Colruyt: Two experts in Nutri-Score, but what about their impact score?
If the sanitary crisis has taught us anything, it is that we should never take good health for granted. Health is the most precious thing in life, and the most precious gift to offer.
That’s why both Delhaize and Colruyt are launching initiatives to promote better eating and healthy lifestyles. But the two leading supermarkets choose different ways to communicate about their visions. While Delhaize skillfully embeds their message in a moving family story that will bring you a smile, Colruyt goes straight to the point and offers you not only a balanced lifestyle, but also a balanced budget.
Delhaize La santé, c’est le plus beau des cadeaux, YouTube, uploaded by Delhaize Belgium
Colruyt Bonne année et bonne santé, YouTube, uploaded by Colruyt Meilleurs Prix
Two experts in Nutri-Score – but whose production will achieve a higher impact score? Now it’s time for FEELIN to help you find out. If you are not (yet) familiar with the concept and format of “Ad Battle”, click here for our beginner pack.
For those who prefer the take-away version, here you go!
Delhaize showed us a good example of applying an emotional storytelling in video campaigns, and this choice succeeded in creating a strong impact on viewers. In Colruyt’s ad, viewers show fewer positive reactions compared to Delhaize, but they do (especially male viewers!) demonstrate a higher degree of happiness when they see the cute baby in the final scene.
As for attentional power, both Delhaize and Colruyt delivered a very good performance in the first 5 seconds, demonstrating their ability to stimulate their audience – both ads reached 70% of viewer engagement.
While watching Delhaize’s ad, viewers remain relatively focused throughout the whole spot despite its 90 sec. length. Their attentional level increases when the story reaches its climax, just before the transition to tagline and logo.
Delhaize’s good performance in attracting and retaining viewers’ attention can be explained by its brand pulsing strategy: throughout the commercial, the focus is rarely restricted to the brand itself, instead, their logo and products are skillfully embedded in the storyline. Research shows that pulsing strategy is beneficial for increasing audience engagement.
When watching Colruyt’s ad, viewers’ attention remains stable on a high level throughout the whole video. Their secret is to directly introduce key messages in the center of the screen.
In Delhaize’s video, we located viewers’ gaze-fixations on protagonists, products, logo and tagline, whereas in Colruyt’s ad, the fixations tend to be exclusively oriented towards the text located in the center of the screen (and sometimes deviate towards the surrounding human faces) – the products are rarely fixated, which might be a major weakness in Colruyt’s creative design.
The winner of FEELIN’s Ad Battle #6 goes to Delhaize!
Round One: Emotional Impact
Delhaize La santé, c’est le plus beau des cadeaux: 31.82% of Feelers reacted with strong emotions, the dominant emotion here is happiness (20.5%).
Colruyt Bonne année et bonne santé: 13.04% of Feelers reacted with strong emotions, the dominant emotion here is also happiness (13.0%).
Happiness elicitation sequences Delhaize
In Delhaize’s ad, viewers’ positive emotion steadily increases as the story unfolds. It hits a peak when the story reaches its climax in the end. Importantly, Delhaize’s video does not promote brand and products directly. The brand Delhaize is not directly mentioned at all during most of the commercial, but is rather embedded within the moving narrative, implying that it’s Delhaize which makes beautiful stories come true.
Happiness elicitation sequences Colruyt
In Colruyt’s ad, viewers show less positive reactions compared to Delhaize, but they still let (especially male viewers!) us know that they are not insensitive to the presence of a cute baby in the final scene.
For Round One, Delhaize showed us a good example of applying an emotional storytelling in commercial campaigns, and this choice succeeded in achieving a strong impact on viewers compared to a more concise design introducing bits of humor and joy every now and then. So, for this round, the winner goes to Delhaize! Excellent work!
Tips from FEELIN: Emotional storytelling is the future of branding! Well-narrated stories communicate messages in emotionally impactful ways. People relate to life stories, much more than to content that pushes products in a more compact way. Providing an emotional context in marketing campaigns makes ads more engaging, and more impactful.
Round Two: Attentional Power
For Round Two, Delhaize achieved an attentional score of 62.93% and Colruyt reached 67.62%.
Attention Power – Overall Tendency Delhaize vs Colruyt
As shown by the statistics, both Delhaize and Colruyt achieved a very good performance in the first 5 seconds, succeeding in keeping their audience engaged – both ads reached 70% engagement.
Delhaize’s ad progressively loses a bit of viewers’ engagement in the middle segment, but a quick rebound ensures that the video becomes more and more engaging as from 00:00:60, just before the transition to tagline and logo!!
Tips from FEELIN: Delhaize’s good performance in attracting and retaining viewers’ attention despite its 90 sec. length can also be explained by its brand pulsing strategy: throughout most of the commercial, the focus rarely lies on the brand itself, instead, logo and products are skillfully embedded in the storytelling. Research shows that pulsing strategy is beneficial for increasing audience engagement.
When watching Colruyt’s ad, viewers’ attention remains stable at a high level during the whole video. Their secret is to present key messages directly in the center of the screen. This proves to be a simple and effective way to keep the audience focused on the center region of the screen, although the main weakness is that viewers might be too focused on this very portion, at the cost of the rest of the image (we will have a clearer illustration with the heatmap in Round Three).
We announce a tie for Round Two! Both contestants demonstrate outstanding results in engaging their audience, different approaches, but equally effective.
Round Three: Eye-Tracking Analysis
As illustrated above, with respect to Delhaize’s ad, we identified fixations on protagonists, products, logo and tagline, whereas in Colruyt’s ad the fixations tend to limited to the text (although they sometimes deviate and include the surrounding human faces) – the products are rarely fixated, which might be a major weakness in Colruyt’s creative design. For Round Three, the winner once again goes to Delhaize!
Bonus Point: According to our survey, viewers gave an average score of 4.68 (out of 5) when they were asked how much they liked the Delhaize video, against 4.28 for Colruyt. We are sure that both contestants delivered a good performance in promoting their brand and products, but Delhaize’s victory is definitely well-deserved.
Have you learned any useful tips from our analysis? Book a demo to test the performance of your own creative content. If you are interested in picking up more practical tips, you really should check our blog (we promise, it’s a treasure box!).