World's largest database of audience responses to ads shows engagement up 47%, while positive emotion falls 22%. As brands chase attention with louder, shorter, more emotional ads, declining positivity may lead to weaker sales performance and brand growth
COPENHAGEN, Denmark, May 7, 2026 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- iMotions, the world's leading software platform for human behavior research, today unveiled new findings from the world's largest database of emotional responses to advertising, spanning more than 100,000 ads, 19 million faces, 10 billion frames of video and 90-plus countries. The analysis reveals a paradox at the heart of modern advertising: campaigns are more emotionally engaging than ever, yet those emotions are increasingly negative, undermining their ability to drive sales.
Using Affectiva Media Analytics, now fully integrated into the iMotions platform, researchers measured viewers' facial expressions and attention as they watched ads in naturalistic settings, decoding moment‑by‑moment emotional reactions indicative of joy, surprise, confusion, anger and overall positivity and engagement. Across a decade of TV ads tested online, average emotional engagement scores rose more than 47%, while indicators of positive reactions, such as smiles fell by 22%. On average, emotional reactions crossed into negative territory around 2021.
"Advertising is getting louder, faster and more emotional, but not necessarily in ways that help brands," said Graham Page, Global Managing Director, Media Analytics at iMotions. "Our database shows that people are reacting more, but feeling less positive. That's potentially problematic, as in general positive emotions are associated with stronger sales impact."
From Uplifting to a darker emotional mix
The downward valence trend appears consistently across the top 10 markets in the database. Countries including the US, UK, Germany, France, Australia, India and Japan have all moved from net‑positive to net‑negative responses when comparing 2015 to 2025. Over the same period, the emotional palette of advertising has widened: in 2014, reactions associated with joy clearly dominated, while reactions linked to sadness, fear, anger, contempt, confusion and disgust tended to be minimal; by 2025, these "darker" emotions all register at much higher levels, with joy lower than before.
Despite this, iMotions' data shows that decreased positivity does not mean people themselves are more miserable: classic, uplifting stories like Cadbury's "Mum's Birthday" still elicit very similar smile curves when re‑tested five years apart.
Hard evidence that negativity depresses performance
Linking emotional data to outcomes, iMotions' analysis and prior Affectiva-Mars work demonstrate that more negative emotional profiles are significantly less likely to be high‑performing in sales terms. In a large study previously presented at ESOMAR, about 60% of ads with high positive and low negative expressions were classified as high performers, versus only around 30% of ads with low positive and high negative expressions.
Similar patterns appear beyond traditional advertising. By modeling movie box office performance, iMotions found that movie trailers which fell into the top 25% for positive audience reactions were associated on average with an extra $40m in box office, vs movies whose trailers fell into the bottom 25% for positive emotions.
Digital and GenAI: more emotion, more risk
A complicating factor is the shift towards digital video and the industry's fixation on easy‑to‑count attention metrics. In a global sample of digital ads, iMotions found no meaningful linear relationship between engagement (measured by facial reactions) and attention (based on looking at the screen while the ad plays); plotting one against the other produces a near‑random cloud of points, illustrating that "looking" does not automatically equate to "feeling."
Large-scale analysis of the database showed that attention and emotional engagement require different things: People are more likely to watch more of a shorter ad; but they are more likely to be emotionally moved by a longer ad which has more time to develop a narrative. Put simply, shorter ads win on sheer attention, but slightly longer ones create deeper emotional involvement.
"Digital and GenAI have made it cheaper and faster than ever to produce attention‑grabbing content, but they haven't changed the fundamentals of human psychology," Page said. "If you only optimize for the first three seconds and forget to land a positive, human payoff, you may win the scroll but lose the sale."
About iMotions
Founded in 2005 and headquartered in Copenhagen, iMotions has developed the world's leading human behavior research software platform. More than 1,500 organizations around the world – from leading academic institutions to global brands and highly respected healthcare organizations – use iMotions to access real-time and nonconscious emotional, cognitive and behavioral data. By integrating and synchronizing all types of sensors into a single platform, iMotions provides researchers with access to deeper and richer insights – and the most complete picture of human behavior. For more information, visit iMotions.com.
Media Contact
Todd Graff, Graff Communications, 1 617-309-0401, [email protected]
SOURCE Graff Communications
Share this article