AD BATTLE #8 Duvel 6.66% vs. Victoria: A head-on confrontation between the devil and the angel
Opening with Duvel 6.66% and Victoria from AB InBev, Feelin’s Ad Battle #8 is meant to be more than a competition between two leading Belgian breweries – it’s a head-on confrontation between the devil and the angel.
Giving us 666 reasons to have a Duvel 6.66%, Duvel’s production embodies all the daring, youthful spirit and the “Duvelish” character of the 150-year-old Duvel Moortgat family brewery. In contrast, with Brussels’s patron saint St. Michael featuring on the label, the blond beer Victoria is challenging all the devils out there. The film is characterized by an otherworldly mood and is urging us to #DareToBeGood and conquer evil in our daily lives.
Duvel 666 good reasons to have a Duvel 6.66%, YouTube, uploaded by Duvel
Victoria Dare to be good, YouTube, uploaded by Victoria Belgium
Will the audience be more attracted to the devil or the angel? 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.
Here’s the Take-Away version:
Regarding Duvel 6.66%, viewers mainly reacted with positive emotions (14.9%), whereas towards Victoria, they demonstrate a mixed feeling with happiness (9.5%), anger (7.1%) and sadness (4.8%).
Both videos have well engaged viewers’ attention in the first 10 (in the case of Victoria, first 5) seconds, but showed weakness in retaining their attention until the final transition to logo and product.
According to eye-tracking analysis, we observe that viewers have read all key information in the first 10 seconds in Duvel’s ad (an ideal short version!). In the final scene, viewers’ gaze is slightly distracted by the yellow background.
In Victoria’s final plan, viewers did not notice the bottle (with their important angel motive!) or the barley and hops representing the beer’s natural ingredients.
The victory goes to Duvel 6.66%! Don’t miss the full analysis, practical tips and heatmap illustrations below!
Round One: Emotional Impact
Duvel 666 good reasons to have a Duvel 6.66%: 23.4% of Feelers reacted with strong emotions, the dominant emotion here is happiness (14.9%).
As illustrated below, the happiness elicitation sequences roughly follow the narrative pace of the video. Two highlights coincide with two unexpected and absurd reasons for using a tasty Duvel 6.66: “I forgot my password” and “I’m not your dad”.
Happiness elicitation sequence Duvel
Victoria Dare to be good: 21.43% of Feelers reacted with strong emotions; here we observe a mixed feeling combining happiness (9.5%), anger (7.1%) and sadness (4.8%).
The video’s mystic and otherworldly atmosphere, together with various demon figures, result in rather negative emotions. However, when the principal figure drinks a Victoria and becomes an angel, the negative emotions are overcome by significant positive reactions. It’s also interesting to see that this scene has more impact on female viewers. Perhaps female audience can better identify with the protagonist and especially with this moment of female empowerment.
Tips from Feelin: It’s not necessarily bad news to observe negative emotions in viewers’ reactions. Important is that a positive and empowering image is assigned to the product (in our case the Victoria beer). This helps consumers overcome their negative emotions.
A tie for Round One since both ads are emotionally impactful for viewers, though in different ways.
Round Two: Attentional Power
For Round Two, Duvel achieved an attentional score of 63.57% and Victoria reached 61.29%.
Attentional Power – Overall Tendency Duvel vs Victoria
For this round, both contestants delivered an excellent performance in engaging viewers in the first 5 (and in the case of Duvel, first 10) seconds. Afterwards, the level of attention in Duvel’s video remains relatively stable until the last 5 seconds, when their logo and product are presented. A similar kind of weakness is also experienced by the other contestant: in Victoria’s video, the level of attention continuously decreases in the second half (after 15 sec).
Tips from Feelin: There are two crucial moments in which brands must ensure the engagement and retention of their video content: the first 5 seconds and the moment right before showing their logo and product.
As for Round Two, both contestants have well engaged viewers’ attention in the first 5 seconds, while in the last seconds before the transition to logo and product, there is still potential for improvement. Another tie!
Round Three: Eye-Tracking Analysis
Heat Map Duvel
As illustrated by the heat map, a good point is that areas of interest (AOI) cover regions in which text, product and logo are situated. In the first 10 seconds, all key elements are well fixated by the audience (so the 10 first seconds can be an ideal short version of this ad). In the final scenes, which is the transition to the bottle of Duvel 6.66%, viewers’ gaze is not fully fixated on the bottle, but slightly distracted by the bright yellow background. Moreover, during the course of the whole video, the product and logo are not always fixated by the audience (perhaps due to the fast transition between scenes).
Heat Map Victoria
Regarding Victoria’s Dare to be good, we locate fixations in the areas where logo, protagonists and products are situated. However, in the final scene, only the beer glass and the tagline are read by viewers, while the bottle (with the important angel motive!) is not noticed by the audience. Similarly, the barley and hops representing the natural ingredients are also not fixated by viewers.
For this round, the winner is Duvel 6.66%!
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!).