Emotional matching between videos and ads: Does incongruence lead to better engagement

Does Emotional Matching Between Video Ads and Content
Lead to Better Engagement: Evidence from a Large-Scale

Field Experiment∗
Anuj Kapoor Sridhar Narayanan Amitt Sharma
June 9, 2022
Abstract
Modern digital advertising platforms allow ads to be targeted in a variety of ways, and
generally aim to match the ad being shown with either the user or the content being shown.
In this study, we examine the effect of matching in emotional content of ads and the video
on which the ad is shown on consumers’ engagement with the ad. On the one hand, ads
that are emotionally matched with the content video could lead to greater engagement with
the ad because of the desire for consumers to extend the emotion they are experiencing. On
the other hand, emotional mismatch between the ad and content video can lead to greater
perceptual contrast, thereby drawing more attention to the ad. Additionally, consumers
viewing a video with negative emotions might have a preference for positive emotions in
the advertising to get themselves to a happier state. Thus, whether emotional matching
is more effective in driving ad engagement, and thereby potentially consumers’ evaluation
of, affect towards, and purchase of the advertised good is an empirical question. We study
this question through a field experiment run in collaboration with VDO.AI, a video and ad
serving platform. In this experiment, we manipulate the video/ad combination consumers
see, with variation across the experimental conditions in the emotional content of ads and
videos. We find that in our setting incongruence, where emotional content of videos and ads
are mismatched, leads to greater ad engagement. We find suggestive evidence for attention
being the mechanism through which incongruence leads to better outcomes. Our findings
contribute to the literature on advertising, and provide an important targeting variable for
firms in the AdTech space.
Keywords Video Advertising, Emotions, Contextual Advertising, Congruence, Consumer En-

gagement, Field-Experiment
∗
Kapoor: Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, Narayanan: Stanford University and Sharma: vdo.ai.
The views discussed here represent that of the authors and not of Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad
or Stanford University or vdo.ai. The usual disclaimer applies. The authors declare they have no commercial
relationship with vdo.ai, and the research is conducted with no restrictions on the publishability of the findings
from the field experiment. The authors thank Ayush Garg and Vedang Asgaonkar for excellent research assistance.
Please contact Kapoor (anujk@iima.ac.in) or Narayanan (sridharn@stanford.edu) for correspondence.
Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4131151

1 Introduction
In this paper, we empirically study the effect of matching or congruence between ads and the videos
in which they are placed in terms of their emotional content. Digital video and ad serving platforms
allow for targeted advertising, using a variety of targeting variables. These include consumer
characteristics, the content of the video on which they are placed, and contextual variables such
as time of day. An important distinguishing factor of video advertising, as opposed to forms of
advertising relying on text or even static images, is the potential for rich emotional content in these
ads. Thus, an important potential variable for targeting of ads could be the emotional content of
the content video in which advertising is placed and how well matched it is with the emotional
content of the ad. For this, an understanding of the impact of emotional matching of videos and
ads is important. In this study, we aim to gain such an understanding through a field experiment
where we exogenously vary the degree to which there is such emotional matching, and examine
the impact of such matching on consumers’ engagement with the ad.
There has been a growing literature on the study of matching in persuasive messaging, includ-
ing advertising. In particular, the role of targeting or tailoring or what has been referred to as
’personalized matching’ has received a lot of attention in the marketing and psychology literatures
(see, for instance Teeny et al. 2021 for a recent review). The focus in this literature has typically
been on the match between the advertising message and the recipient of the message. There has
been on the other hand more limited attention paid to ’non-personalized matching’, particularly
in the advertising context. Non-personalized matching refers to the match between the situation
or context of the message and the message itself. Studies in the past have examined matching
between the type of product being written about - hedonic vs. utilitarian - and the type of message
- emotional vs. cognitive - (Rocklage and Fazio, 2020), or the characteristics of the message source
and the message itself (Karmarkar and Tormala, 2010). Additionally, past studies have examined
the effect of matching valence (Coulter, 1998; Kamins et al., 1991), arousal (Puccinelli et al., 2015),
mood (Kamins et al., 1991) and theme (Dahlén et al., 2008) on the effectiveness of ads. A recent
study (Fong, 2021) uses the emotional content of music in videos and ads to indirectly examine
the impact of matching. There is however little direct evidence of the effect of matching between
the emotional content of a video ad and that of the content video in which the ad is placed. We
attempt to fill this gap by directly examining matching in emotional content of ads and the videos
they are placed in. Further, in contrast to previous studies that have examined attitudes of con-
sumers towards the subject of the ad, we focus on actions that consumers can take to engage or
disengage with the ad, including skipping the video altogether. This is of great relevance in the
online video ad context, where consumers often have the option to skip an ad.
We design and implement a large-scale field experiment in collaboration with the video/ad

serving platform VDO.AI to directly study the effect of matching emotions for video ads and the
video content on which they are placed. VDO.AI provides both video and ad content for playing
in designated locations on third party websites. In collaboration with the firm, we select a set of
videos and ads that span the range of emotions from happy to sad. We focus on these specific
emotions since they are commonly studied in the literature (e.g. Kamins et al. 1991; Lee et al.
2013) and are commonly employed by the advertising industry - for instance Facebook (Kramer
et al., 2014) and Google1 We then use a set of research assistants to rate these videos/ads on a
happiness/sadness scale. Next, we set up a randomized controlled experiment on the VDO.AI
platform, with users randomly assigned to different combinations of videos and ads, such that
we have conditions with matched/unmatched content videos and ads in terms of their emotional
content. In our setting, the ad is always a post-roll ad, i.e. it is played only after the video is
completely played, thereby ensuring that the consumer has had the opportunity to experience the
emotion that the content video aims to evoke. We observe the extent to which consumers view
the ad, and develop measures of consumer engagement with the ad based on this observation.
We examine the impact of emotional matching/congruence vs. non-matching/incongruence of the
content video and the ad on these measures of consumer engagement.
Our main finding is that when ads are incongruent or emotionally mismatched with the content
videos, there is greater consumer engagement than when the ads are congruent or matched. These
results contrasts with one of the key findings of prior research that matching leads to better
advertising outcomes (Kamins et al., 1991; Lee et al., 2013; Fong, 2021). One of the key differences
in our experimental design is that unlike prior studies, which manipulate valence or arousal or
mood, we directly manipulate the emotional content in the ad as well as in the content video in
which the ad is inserted. Second, our experiment is in the field setting, unlike prior work, that has
typically been in the lab and therefore suffers from the typical limitations in establishing external
validity. Third, we examine consumer behaviors directly through revealed preference measures
of engagement , as opposed to stated preference measures such as attitudes in prior literature.
Overall, we find that in our context of video advertising, congruence between the content video
and the ad leads to lower engagement than incongruence. These effects are both statistically and
economically significant.
We further examine the mechanism by which incongruence might lead to greater user engage-
ment with the ad. In particular, we examine two different mechanisms by which incongruence
between the content video and ad can lead to greater engagement - attention and emotion reg-
ulation. The first mechanism is based on the fact that when ads are incongruent, there is more
1
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/06/28/facebook-manipulated-689003-users\
-emotions-for-science/?sh=2c8c20bb197c

perceptual contrast between them, leading to greater attention from the user, and thereby greater
engagement with the ad (Biswas et al., 1994; Andrade, 2005). The second mechanism of emotional
regulation is based on consumers wanting to extent the emotion they are experiencing (Tamir,
2009, 2016). Whey they are watching a happy video, they might want to extend this emotional
state and hence not wish to view a sad ad. A happy ad would extend their happy emotional state
and therefore they might be more likely to view and engage with a happy ad following a happy
video. The effect of these phenomena is that consumers might be more willing to engage with the
ad when the emotional content in the ad and the content video are matched than when they are
mismatched. Our research design allows us to examine the different combinations of emotions in
videos/ads, and thereby indirectly examine these mechanisms as well. The evidence from our anal-
ysis is consistent with attention being the main mechanism by which incongruent videos/ads lead
to greater user engagement with the ad and we do not find support for the emotional regulation
mechanism.
The paper contributes to the literature on advertising, emotions and matching. In the adver-
tising literature, a number of recent studies have examined the value of targeting of display ads
(Bleier and Eisenbeiss, 2015), retargeted ads (Lambrecht and Tucker, 2013) and email marketing
campaigns (Sahni et al., 2018) among others. Our study contributes to this literature by exam-
ining the role of targeting based on advertising content in the context of video advertising. It
contributes to the rich literature on context effects, and specifically applied to advertising see for
instance Kirmani and Yi 1991 and Kwon et al. 2019) by examining a very relevant part of the
context for the ad, namely the context in which the ad is placed. It contributes to the literature
on matching in advertising (recent examples include Belanche et al. 2017; Furnham et al. 2002;
Janssens et al. 2012; Kononova and Yuan 2015) by considering a very important type of non-
personalized matching - matching on emotional content. In addition, it provides a set of valuable
insights for practitioners in the field. Advertisers and advertising platforms can both benefit from
the opportunities for targeting based on emotional content. It adds to the literature through a
field experiment, giving us causal effects while also being externally valid.
In the rest of the paper, we first provide a background of the empirical context, describe the
experimental design, present the main results as well as explore the underlying mechanisms before
finally concluding.
2 Background
Our empirical setting is in the context of video advertising on online platforms. The most ubiq-
uitous of these is YouTube, where viewers watch content videos and ads are inserted into the

videos at various points in the video. Compared to other forms of online advertising such as
search advertising or even most forms of display advertising, video advertising has the potential to
engage consumers emotionally. Thus, it is the primary form of online advertising used for brand
advertising2 . Additionally, it allows for a high degree of targeting and subsequent tracking. Video
advertising has grown to be a 81.9 billion US dollars industry3 in 2021.
Video advertising differs in its form across different platforms. On YouTube, for instance, ads
can be shown before the content video is played and mid-roll (i.e. during the course of the video).
On other platforms, ads are shown only mid-roll or post-roll (i.e. after the content video has
finished playing). Our empirical context is of post-roll ads, where the viewer has to completely
view the content video before the ad video is shown to them. Next, we describe the features of
our specific platform.
Our study is conducted in collaboration with a video advertising platform called VDO.AI.
VDO.AI, based in India and the US, collaborates with publishers worldwide to provide video
content for their web pages. Essentially, it collates interesting content videos that are played on
third-party publishers’ websites. Figure 1 shows a screen grab from one such video playing on
the website of the Indian newspaper, The Hindu. The platform also allows advertisers to use this
space to place their ads, specifically as post-roll ads that play after the content video has finished
playing completely.
The platform allows users to engage or disengage with the video. The content video and ad can
be muted at any time so it plays without audio. Additionally, ads can typically be skipped after 5
seconds of viewing it. The user can of course exit the webpage where the video is playing at any
time. The platform records whether the viewer muted the video, skipped the ad, and the extent
to which the ad is viewed before the page was exited. This allows us to build various measures of
engagement with the ad.
2
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescommunicationscouncil/2022/04/13/
why-every-company-needs-a-chief-video-officer/?sh=d08238065295
3
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradadgate/2021/12/08/agencies-agree-2021-was-a-record-year-for-ad-spendi
?sh=127b8b417bc6

Figure 1. In-stream & Post-Roll Video Ad Placement in the Experiment
Notes: The figure depicts a sample ”In-stream” and ”Post-roll” video ad placement deployed in the experiment.
Typically, which ad is shown in a given content video is determined by a second-price auction,

where advertisers bid on the ad slot, and the bidder who won the auction pays the amount bid by
the next-highest bidder. For the purpose of the experiment we set up, VDO.AI drew on a separate
inventory of ads to determine the ad to be shown - in other words, the ad placement was not
determined by an auction. The specific videos and ads to be shown during our experiment were
pre-determined and not determined through any algorithmic or human-directed targeting process.
One additional aspect of this context that is pertinent to our study is the issue of viewability
(Uhl et al., 2020). Content videos and ads are placed by VDO.AI on websites with other content.
This is distinct from video-viewing platforms such as Youtube, where the primary content is the
video itself. Therefore, while the video/ad might be playing in our context, there is no guarantee
that the user is actually viewing it (Bounie et al., 2017). This can happen for multiple reasons.
First, the video might not be completely in the page view - i.e. some part of it might be above or
below a page fold, such that the video is only partially visible to the consumer. Second, a consumer
might be viewing other content in the webpage, while the video is running. This is inherently not
measurable short of attaching eye tracking devices to the screens to identify which parts of the
screen the consumer is looking at (McGranaghan et al., 2022). This is obviously infeasible at scale.
The industry has therefore, through smaller scale studies involving such eye-tracking devices, tried
to determine the proportion of users on a given webpage that are actually viewing a given piece

of content, and arrived at estimates of what is termed as ’viewability’ by this industry. This is
pertinent to our study since it affects our interpretation of the effects of our treatment. We will
discuss this in more detail while discussing the empirical estimates from our experiment.
3 Experimental Design
Our experiment aims to understand how emotional matching or congruence between an ad and
the content video in which it is placed affects consumers’ engagement with the ad. We designed
a field experiment in collaboration with the video and ad serving platform VDO.AI, where we
exogenously manipulated the content video and the ad that the consumer could view. This design
allowed us to both examine the main question of the role of matching/congruence and explore the
underlying mechanisms by which it affects behavior.
The experiment was conducted across a large number of publishers on the internet, with a focus
on consumers in India or those viewing India-related content in other parts of the world. This
focus on Indian consumers was because emotions in videos could relate to the cultural context of
the viewer. The focus on Indian consumers allowed us to reduce the disparities in cultures that
could cause ambiguity of the emotions felt by users for a given video. For identifying the videos
and ads to be included in the experiment, we used Indian research assistants to score videos on
the emotions. Thus, the identification of videos, as well as the consumers viewing it were Indian
or India-related.
Users who arrived at a website included in the experiment were randomly assigned to one of
four conditions in a two by two design - two conditions for the content video - happy or sad,
crossed with two conditions for the ad video - again happy or sad. Thus, they were shown either a
happy content video from a pre-selected set of videos, or a sad video from a pre-selected set. After
viewing the video, they were shown ads from one of two ad conditions - happy or sad, once again
from a pre-selected set of happy or sad videos.
Figure 2 shows a schematic of the experimental design.

Figure 2. Sequence of watching the Video Advertisement
Notes: The Figure above shows a schematic of the experimental design.
3.1 Video & Ad Selection
First, the curation team from our partner VDO.AI selected a number of videos and ads that they
classified as happy or sad. This was a manual process, where the team had access to a larger set of
videos from which they shortlisted a set of videos as ranging in emotions from happy to sad. This
selection process focused on finding videos and ads that were clear in their emotional content, and
typically had only one dominant emotion running through the entire course of the video.
Then, we recruited a set of 7 research assistants to view all these videos and rate them on their
emotional content on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from happy (3) to sad (-3). These research
assistants were also recruited in India, so as to be culturally aligned with the consumers who would
be viewing the ads in the field experiment. We then selected a set of videos that were at least 2
or above on in terms of their average ratings across the 7 research assistants, or below -2 (thus,
selecting the videos that were more extreme in their emotional content on either side of the scale -
happy or sad). This reduced our set of videos to a set of 24 content videos and 33 ad videos. Table
1 lists the number of unique ads and content videos in the experiment by experimental condition.
Table 1. Content Videos and Ads
Happy Sad
Content Video 11 13
Ad 20 13

Notes: The Table above lists the number of unique ads and content videos in the experiment.
Table 2 reports 3 particular coefficients of inter-rater agreement for more than 2 raters specifi-
cally adapted for cardinal data (the measures for Ad and Video Emotions are cardinal in nature).
As we can see, Krippendorff’s Alpha is 0.839 for the videos and 0.792 for the first quartile and
0.694 for the videos and 0.619 for the second quartile which is an acceptable score (Krippendorff,
2018). Similarly, Kendall’s W values are at a reasonable level.
Table 2. Inter-Rater Agreement

Q1 Q2
Kendall W Kripp α Percentage Kendall W Kripp α Percentage
Videos
Happy Videos 0.176 0.004 27.3 0.451 0.203 9.09
Sad Videos 0.161 0.003 69.2 0.264 0.0522 15.4
All Videos 0.896 0.839 50 0.79 0.694 12.5
Ads
Happy Ads 0.224 0.013 35 0.187 0.010 10.0
Sad Ads 0.177 0.054 38.5 0.175 0.032 5.34
All Ads 0.860 0.792 36.4 0.728 0.619 6.17
All Content 0.879 0.821 42.1 0.762 0.677 8.77
Notes: The Table above reports Krippendorff’s Alpha & Kendall’s W.

It is important to note that all the ads and the videos in the experiment were already earmarked
by VDO.AI’s clients for actual deployment before the start of our experiment, and therefore the
ads and the content videos in the experiment were relevant to the users as well as the advertisers.
4 Empirical Analysis
4.1 Data
We first describe the data, conduct randomization checks and discuss our overall empirical strategy.
The data were collected at the level of an impression. The impression recorded the unique user-ID
along with the IP address the user was accessing the website from. A total of about 25 million
impressions were included in the experiment. They were then randomly assigned to be shown
one of the 24 content videos, or one of the 33 ads. Since the content videos and ads were not
equal across conditions, and it was easiest for our partner platform to implement a design where
one of these 24 content videos or 33 ads were shown at random, our final sample was not equally
distributed across the four different conditions. Table 3 below shows the distribution of the ad
impressions across each experimental condition.

Table 3. Distribution of Impressions Across the Different Experimental Conditions
Condition Description Number Of Impressions
1 HH Happy Video followed by a Happy Ad 7,35,518
2 HS Happy Video followed by a Sad Ad 4,47,897
4 SH Sad Video followed by a Happy Ad 8,19,593
5 SS Sad Video followed by a Sad Ad 4,99,422
Total 25,02,430
Notes: The Table above shows the count of impressions across the four experiment sub-conditions, i.e. Happy ad
& Happy video, Happy ad & Sad video, Sad ad & Sad video, Sad ad & Sad video.
We next report a set of randomization checks in Section B of the Appendix. In this section,
we show that randomization is induced properly. Specifically, we verify that the users across
experimental conditions have no systematic differences in the probability of being shown the videos
they are eligible to be shown, that their probability of being shown a happy or sad video does not
systematically vary across the days of week, hours of day, device type they are using, etc.
4.2 Outcome Measures
For each impression, we study four main outcomes based on whether the user viewed: (1) the
first quartile of the duration of the advertisement, (2) the midpoint of the duration of the adver-
tisement, (3) the third quartile of the duration of the advertisement or (4) the full ad. All four
outcome measures [(1) - (4)] are behavioral measures that are important indicators of the degree of
engagement of the consumer with the ad, and are important to the video platform 4 . Table 5 lists
the raw data for the outcome measures across Happy and Sad Videos, Table 4 lists the outcome
measures across Happy and Sad Videos and finally, Table 6 lists the outcome measures across the
four experiment sub-conditions, i.e. Happy ad & Happy video, Happy ad & Sad video, Sad ad &
Sad video, Sad ad & Sad video.
Table 4. Outcomes across Happy and Sad Ads
Ad-Emotion Count First Quartile Mid Point Third Quartile Complete

Mean Std Mean Std Mean Std Mean Std
Happy 15,55,111 0.82 0.45 0.73 0.50 0.66 0.52 0.61 0.53
Sad 9,47,319 0.81 0.43 0.73 0.48 0.66 0.5 0.61 0.52
Notes: The Table above lists the means and standard deviations of the outcome measures across Happy and Sad
Ads.
4
This is related to the question of what constitutes relevant “actions.” In general, major advertising platforms
like Facebook and Google list the amount of ad viewed as an important performance metric.
10

Table 5. Outcomes across Happy and Sad Videos
Video-Emotion Count First Quartile Mid Point Third Quartile Complete

Mean Std Mean Std Mean Std Mean Std
Happy 11,83,415 0.79 0.40 0.70 0.46 0.63 0.48 0.58 0.49
Sad 13,19,015 0.80 0.39 0.72 0.45 0.65 0.48 0.60 0.49
Notes: The Table above lists the means and standard deviations of the outcome measures across Happy and Sad
videos.
Table 6. Outcomes across Video & Ad Impression Distribution
Cohort Total Impressions % First Quartile % Midpoint % Third Quartile % Complete

HH 735518 79.59 70.01 63.29 58.00
HS 447897 79.82 70.63 63.84 58.55
SH 819593 80.65 71.66 65.20 60.01
SS 499422 80.65 71.98 65.46 60.37
Notes: The Table above shows the performance of outcome variables across the four experiment sub-conditions, i.e.
Happy ad & Happy video, Happy ad & Sad video, Sad ad & Sad video, Sad ad & Sad video.
4.3 Main Effects
We first run a series of regressions to explore the relationship between the matching/congruence
between content video and ad, and the ad watching behavior. Let WatchBehaviori denote a binary
0/1 indicator of the ad watch outcome for exposure i - these denote the four different outcomes
we examine - watching the first quartile, midpoint, third quartile and the complete ad. Thus, if
the user corresponding to impression i watched the ad until the first quartile, the corresponding
W atchB ehaviori is 1, otherwise it is 0. Let IncongruenceConditioni be a dummy variable indicating
whether the experimental conditions correspond to incongruence between the content video and ad
(where a happy ad is played after a sad video or vice-versa). To examine the effect of incongruence
on these outcomes, we run the following regressions, one for each of the four outcome variables.
WatchBehaviori = α + β1 IncongruenceConditioni + ϵi
Here, β captures the effect of the incongruence between the content video and the ad on user’s
11

watch behavior, relative to the conditions where these are matched or congruent. We present our
results in Table 7.
Table 7. Effect of Incongruence vs. Congruence on Ad Watch Behavior
First Quartile Midpoint Third Quartile Complete

Incongruence 0.00391∗∗∗ 0.00483∗∗∗ 0.00609∗∗∗ 0.00652∗∗∗
(0.000552) (0.000622) (0.000653) (0.000667)
Constant 0.818∗∗∗ 0.726∗∗∗ 0.659∗∗∗ 0.606∗∗∗

(0.00257) (0.00259) (0.00259) (0.00258)
Observations 2502430 2502430 2502430 2502430
Standard errors in parentheses
∗
p < 0.05, ∗∗ p < 0.01, ∗∗∗ p < 0.001
Notes: The dependent variable is completion till first quartile, completion till second quartile, completion till third
quartile, completion till full. The “OLS” columns show the estimates of a linear probability model.
The main results of our experiment are that incongruence between content videos and ads
leads to greater viewing of the ads across all four outcome variables. The baseline viewership of
the first quartile of the ad is about 81.8%, and this goes up by .39% for the incongruent conditions.
Thus, when the ad and content videos are mismatched, this viewership goes up to about 82.2%.
Similarly, the viewership of the ad until its midpoint goes up from 72.6% to about 73.1%. For the
third quartile, these numbers are approximately 65.9% and 66.5%, and for the viewership of the
complete video, these are approximately 60.6% and 61.2%.
Of note here is that these are relatively high baseline levels of viewership of the ads compared
to the numbers typically seen for a platform like YouTube. This is because of two reasons. First,
the platform shows these ads on other content-filled web pages - the consumer navigates to these
web pages for this other content and not for the videos themselves. Thus, they could be ’viewing’
the ad, but actually consuming some other content simultaneously. Also, the ads play by default
in the muted state, allowing for such multitasking on the part of the consumer. This is the issue
of ”viewability” that was discussed in the section 2. Thus, only a proportion of those recorded as
viewing the ad actually view it. Second, since our experiment only involves post-roll ads, where
the ad is shown conditional on viewing the content video to completion, the set of consumers spend
a lot of time on the website by design. Since exiting the video is the same as exiting the webpage,,
a larger proportion of them ’view’ the ad to completion than if the consumers were not selected
in this way. While we don’t have a way of directly estimating the proportion of these users that
actively view the ad, the estimates of our project partner, VDO.AI and of the industry itself is
that approximately 5 to 20% of viewers of an ad actively view it.
12

The magnitude of the effect of incongruence may seem small. At an effect size of 0.00652 vs. a
baseline of 0.606, the effect of incongruence on viewing the ad to completion may seem like a very
small 1.07%. However, the effect size is considered to be a relevant metric by VDO.AI because of
the impact such increase in ad viewership would have on revenues when scaled across the billions
of impressions it serves every month.
Since the users access the content video and the video advertisement from different countries and
across different time zones, we control for various observables like user-agent, country, country ×
T ime and the city from where the user logs in. To account for variable conditions over time, we
also include both day and hour-of-day fixed effects. The Table 8 report the regression results with
additional controls. Specifically, we operationalize the regression as
WatchBehaviori = α + βIncongruenceConditioni + γXi + ϵi
where X = f (user − agent, country, country × T ime, city, day, hour − of − day)
Our main findings are that even with a very detailed set of controls, with fixed effects for every
combination of country and time, browser/device type and city of login, the effects of incongruence
are significant and positive.
13

Table 8. Regression results on the effect of ad-video emotion incongruence on ad watching (with
additional controls)
Coefficient for IncongruenceCondition:

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
First-Quartile 0.00391∗∗∗ 0.00387∗∗∗ 0.00253∗∗∗ 0.00385∗∗∗ 0.00241∗∗∗
(0.000552) (0.000560) (0.000557) (0.000551) (0.000552)
Mid Point 0.00483∗∗∗ 0.00480∗∗∗ 0.00299∗∗∗ 0.00476∗∗∗ 0.00288∗∗∗

(0.000622) (0.000622) (0.000610) (0.000622) (0.000606)
Third Quartile 0.00609∗∗∗ 0.00603∗∗∗ 0.00396∗∗∗ 0.00601∗∗∗ 0.00387∗∗∗

(0.000653) (0.000650) (0.000633) (0.000650) (0.000629)
Complete 0.00652∗∗∗ 0.00647∗∗∗ 0.00435∗∗∗ 0.00645∗∗∗ 0.00428∗∗∗

(0.000667) (0.000664) (0.000640) (0.000664) (0.000638)
Time(Hourly) ✓ ✓ ✓
Day ✓ ✓ ✓
User-Agent(Browser, Device) ✓ ✓
Country ✓ ✓
Country x Time ✓ ✓
City ✓
∗ p<0.1; ∗∗ p<0.05; ∗∗∗ p<0.01
quartile, completion till full. The “OLS” columns show the estimates of a linear probability model.
We also report the relative effect sizes in Figure 3. We convert the absolute effect into a
percentage change relative to baseline, computing the robust standard errors of this percentage
change using the delta method. The figure reports the percentage change in viewership across the
four different outcome measures, and the confidence intervals of this percentage change.
14

Figure 3. Percentage change in the Incongruent advertising with respect to the baseline
Notes: The Figure above reports the relative effect sizes. The absolute effect is converted into a percentage change
relative to baseline, computing the robust standard errors of this percentage change using the delta method. The
figure reports the percentage change in viewership across the four different outcome measures, and the confidence
intervals of this percentage change.
Further, in Table 9, rather than classifying the ads and emotions as happy and sad, we use the
emotion scores directly as a continuous measure. The covariate in the regression is the product
of the emotion scores for the content video and the ad. When the content video and ad are
matched, these scores are either both positive (in the case of both being happy) or both negative
(in the case of both being sad), resulting in a positive product. When they are mismatched or
incongruent, this product is negative. The coefficient for this variable would thus indicate the
effect of incongruence. If this coefficient is positive, it would imply that consumers’ viewership
of the ad at the four different time points (first quartile, midpoint, third quartile and complete
video) is greater when the content video and ad are congruent. If it is negative, it would imply
that incongruence leads to greater viewership. The estimate shows the same pattern as earlier –
15

it is negative, implying that incongruence leads to greater viewership.
Table 9. Effect of Incongruence on Ad Viewership - using Emotion Scores Directly
First Quartile Midpoint Third Quartile Complete

Product of Emotion Scores -0.000270∗∗∗ -0.000328∗∗∗ -0.000420∗∗∗ -0.000452∗∗∗
(0.0000416) (0.0000466) (0.0000489) (0.0000499)
Constant 0.820∗∗∗ 0.729∗∗∗ 0.662∗∗∗ 0.610∗∗∗

(0.00255) (0.00255) (0.00255) (0.00255)
Observations 2502430 2502430 2502430 2502430
Standard errors in parentheses
∗
p < 0.05, ∗∗ p < 0.01, ∗∗∗ p < 0.001
quartile, completion till full. The “OLS” columns show the estimates of a linear
5 Examination of Power of Experiment
We conducted Monte Carlo simulations to determine the statistical power needed to detect the
ad-video congruence effect in our sample. We define the effect size to be the percentage difference
in occurrence of an event (say reached first quartile) between the incongruence and congruence
cohorts. We consider a range of effect sizes(0.1%, 0.25% ,0.5%, 1%) and see if we will be able to
detect the delta in ad consumption behavior due to the ad-video congruence. Expressed simply,
we test if for a given effect size, the experiment and the sample has the ability to reject the null
hypothesis of equality between the congruent and incongruent population. To assess this, we took
3 different sample sizes (100,000 ; 500,000 ; 1,000,000) and for each sample, We simulate power
estimates by bootstrapping. The step-by-step procedure for the simulation exercise is presented in
the next few sentences. As a first step, we bootstrap samples from the experiment for a given effect
size, sample size and condition. Then, we compute estimates for the main regression specification.
Next, we collate the p-values from the statistical tests. The power is finally, the proportion of
these p-values ≤ 0.05.
Figures 4 and 5 plot the statistical power against a range of effect sizes. We do block sampling at
the user-level with replacement by pooling together the data from both the experimental conditions
i.e. congruence and Incongruence for a given effect size x. Specifically, we simulate the change in
the decision of x% of the population. The effect is the difference between % occurrence of an event
under the conditions of incongruence and congruence. In this simulation, we produce this difference
by changing the dummy for the event to 1 in x% of the incongruent samples. Then we test the null:
% occurrence of the event is the same in congruence and incongruence using a regression framework
16

and compare the estimated p-value with 5% as the benchmark. The procedure is repeated for many
draws and different effect sizes.
Figure 4. Bootstrapped Power Estimates - A
Notes: Examination of Power of Experiment - A
Figure 5. Bootstrapped Power Estimates - B
Notes: Examination of Power of Experiment - B
17

6 Mechanisms for the Effects of Incongruence
We now explore the mechanism behind the main results and present corresponding empirical
evidence to corroborate our theoretical underpinning.
Theoretical Underpinnings of the Mechanism
So far, we have documented that incongruence in emotions between the ads and the content video
increases the consumer’s probability of watching the ad up to various points of the video.
The first mechanism we examine for our effects is the attention mechanism (Han and Marois,
2014; Kahneman, 1973), which refers to the fact that consumer attention is higher for more novel
content in a given space. This has been specifically applied to the space of emotions as well
(Belanche et al., 2017; Cornelis et al., 2012) and is consistent with the research in advertising and
eye-tracking where attention is directly measured (Pieters and Warlop, 1999). The implication of
this broad idea in our specific context is that attention to an ad that follows a content video should
be increasing in the degree to which the two differ in terms of their emotional content. This in
turn should increase viewership of the ad as well. In our experiment, we have content videos and
ads with a range of emotion scores, and they were all randomly assigned to consumers. This allows
us to examine empirically how consumers behave differently when the ad and content videos were
emotionally very far apart, versus when they were closer together.
Treatment Effects Across Different Incongruent Ad-Video Groups
Specifically, the above discussion suggests that the exact levels of emotion scores of the incongru-
ence condition matter (Noseworthy et al., 2014). We expect the ad in the incongruent ad-video pair
to be less novel and attention grabbing if the ad’s emotion score is close to the emotion score of the
video. Thus, as the distance between the emotion scores of the content video and ad increases (and
thereby novelty of the ad increases), the increased attention this generates should lead to an in-
crease in the effect of incongruence. Furthermore, the optimal stimulation theory (Joachimsthaler
and Lastovicka, 1984) would suggest that there is a point beyond which the contrast between the
content video and ad could lead to ad avoidance as the consumer’s experience is less pleasurable
(Westbrook and Oliver, 1991).
Building on these theoretical underpinnings, we present our propositions:
• Proposition 1a: The treatment effect is higher when we compare the incongruent group to
a congruent group where the ad shown in the incongruent ad-video pair has an emotion score
closest to the emotion score of the video content. That is, as we increase the emotion score
difference between ads and videos in the incongruent group, the treatment effect increases.
18

• Proposition 1b: The treatment effect reaches its highest peak and as we further increase
the difference between the emotion of the ad and the platform video, we expect a decreasing
pattern – the treatment effects are expected to decrease as the spacing between the ad and
video emotions in the incongruent ad-video pair increases.
Now, we look for empirical support for the above two propositions. As a first step, we partition
the incongruent group in our data into sub-groups on the basis of the emotion scores of the
respective ads and videos in the incongruent ad-video pair. We split the data into bins with a
bin-spacing of 1.25 (Binning is done on the product of the scores i.e. emotion score of the ad ×
emotion score of the placement video.
As a next step, we individually estimate the causal effect of treatment against each of these
incongruent ad-video pairs. We present the outcomes in Figure 6.
We wish to clarify that the covariate in the regression is not the product. It is still incongruence
(hence the positive effect). What we do is split the data according to the product of the ad and
video, classify it as congruent or incongruent based on the value of this product and then regress
the outcome measures against the incongruence dummy. This would demonstrate that the positive
effect (coefficient) of incongruence changes according to the level of incongruity (the product of
ad and video emotion). The products in the graph on the x axis listed as 4,5,6,7,8,9 are actually
negative.
As expected, we see an initial increasing trend in the causal effect of treatment as the difference
between the emotion scores of the content videos and the ad increases. Therefore, we infer that
when the difference between the advertisement-video emotions is low, the advertisement will draw
less attention from the user. Interestingly, as we further increase the difference between the emotion
of the ad and the video, we observe a decreasing pattern – the treatment effect decreases as the
spacing between the emotions of the ads and videos in the incongruent ad-video pair further
increases.
19

Figure 6. Treatment Effects Across Different Levels of Emotional Contrast between Content
Video/Ad
Notes: The Figure shows the plots of the coefficients of the ad-video incongruence against the corresponding prod-
uct of emotion score of the ad × emotion score of the placement video. The top-left panel plots this for the first
quadrant viewership, the top-right panel does this for the midpoint, the bottom-left for the third quadrant and
bottom-right for the completion of the video
Figures 7 and 8 plot the same graphs with a bin size of 1.1 and 1.2 respectively. We see a
consistent U-shaped pattern across all the bin sizes.
20

Figure 7. Heterogeneous Treatment Effects - A (Bin Size =1.1)
21

Figure 8. Heterogeneous Treatment Effects - A (Bin Size = 1.2)
Heterogeneity Across Geographies
To further explore the proposition that the users’ behavior under the incongruence treatment effect
is driven by stimulus-novelty and attention, we focus on geography-level features that capture
the user’s exposure to the emotion of the video and the ads: (1) video watching volume – the
inherent tendency of users to consume extreme (sad) emotional videos in that geography, and (2)
ad watching volume - which denotes the inherent tendency of the users to consume extreme (sad)
emotional ads in that geography. These variables capture user’s saturation level in that geography
to an extreme video or ad.
The theoretical mechanism proposed earlier would suggest that it is harder to shift users’
attention with ads having congruent emotional content if they are saturated with more similar
emotion videos or ads. Conversely, when consumers are more saturated with viewing of emotional
content of one kind, incongruent ads should have greater engagement due to their ability to get
the attention of the viewer. Hence, we expect to see higher treatment effects (more viewership in
22

the case of incongruent ad-video pairs) for users with relatively higher consumption of extreme
emotion (sad) videos or ads.
We expect the intervention (incongruent condition) to be more effective in shifting users’ atten-
tion when they have an inherent tendency to see more extreme content. The research on emotion
regulation also suggests that individuals have an inherent tendency to regulate their emotions
by moving from an extreme emotion state (i.e. sadness) to a relatively less extreme state (e.g.
happiness) (Tamir, 2009). Further, users with overall low completion rates of video content are
expected to be more saturated and therefore, are highly likely to engage more with incongruent
emotion ad-content pairs.
Overall, we expect the users who consume relatively less content (watch lesser duration of the
videos) to find incongruent ad video pairs to be more novel compared to the users who consume
relatively more video content. Together, we formulate the following propositions:
• Proposition 2a: The incongruence effect (i.e. preference for incongruent emotion ad-
content pair) is relatively higher for users with high consumption of extreme emotion (happy)
video content.
• Proposition 2b: The incongruence effect (i.e. preference for incongruent emotion ad-
content pair) is relatively higher for users with high consumption of extreme emotion (sad)
video content.
• Proposition 2c: The incongruence effect (i.e. preference for incongruent emotion ad-
content pair) is relatively lower for users with high consumption of less extreme emotion
(happy) ads.
• Proposition 2d : The incongruence effect (i.e. preference for incongruent emotion ad-
content pair) is relatively lower for users with high consumption of extreme emotion (happy)
video content.
• Proposition 2e: The incongruence effect (i.e. preference for incongruent emotion ad-
content pair) is relatively higher for users with overall low completion rates of video content.
• Proposition 2f : The incongruence effect (i.e. preference for incongruent emotion ad-
content pair) is relatively lower for users with overall high completion rates of video content.
We estimate the treatment effects separately for the above propositions. We present the results
in Figure 9. Video completion rates are calculated for each city, followed by a median split
across these completion rates to stratify data into HVC(High Video Completion) and LVC(Low
23

Video Completion) cities. Similarly, for each emotion (Happy and Sad), video and ad completion
rates are calculated city-wise. Cities with higher happy ad(placement video) completion rates
than sad ad(placement video) completion rates are categorised as HAP(HVP). Cities with higher
sad ad(placement video) completion rates than happy ad(placement video) completion rates are
categorised as SAP(SVP). As expected, the effects are significant and positive only in high extreme
emotion (sad) ad and video conditions. These findings are consistent with Propositions 2a, 2b, 2c
and 2d, 2e & 2f, that rely on the attention as the theoretical underpinning.
Figure 9. Heterogeneous Treatment Effects - B
Notes: Heterogeneity in the incongruence effects across video and advertisement preferences aggregated across
geographies (cities). Confidence intervals are built using robust standard errors. HVC refers to the High Video
Completion. LVC refers to the Low Video Completion. HAP refers to Happy ad preference. SAP refers to sad ad
preference. HVP stands for the Happy video preference. SVP stands for the sad ad preference.
We further cut our data across user’s heterogeneous preferences across happy and sad place-
ment video preference (Figure 10) and predict:
• Proposition 3a: The incongruence effect (i.e. preference for incongruent emotion ad-
content pair) is relatively higher for users who consumer more sad video and especially,
24

when happy ad is placed after the sad placement video.
• Proposition 3b: The incongruence effect (i.e. preference for incongruent emotion ad-
content pair) is relatively higher for users with higher preference for Happy video and when
happy ad plays after the sad placement video.
Prediction 3(a) stems from our theoretical mechanism which suggests that users in the sad
emotional state are more likely to regulate their emotions and therefore, try to move away from
the sad state and hence, prefer happy ad content. Extrapolating this to our scenario, users who
prefer sad content are more likely to pay attention to happy ad content as they have higher need to
regulate their emotions (by virtue of consuming more sad content) are therefore, happy ad content
is likely to pick her attention. Therefore, this need for regulating their emotions prompts users who
prefer sad content in general to be inconsistent in their choice and they prefer, happy ad content
after consuming sad video content.
On the other hand, our theoretical mechanism supports Prediction 3b as preference for less
extreme emotions like Happiness don’t generate much need for emotion regulation in the users.
Since, the need for regulating their emotions is not high in such users, they stay consistent with their
preferences and prefer happy ads. We see the coefficient for HVP-SH is gretaer than the coefficient
for HVP-HS as the sad placement video does create a small need for the user to regulate their
emotion - Though we don’t expect the two coefficients to be statistically significantly different
from each other. Therefore, with lower need for emotional regulation, users with preference for
happy content stay show a consistent preference for happy ad content.
25

Figure 10. Heterogeneous Treatment Effects - B
Notes: Heterogeneity in the incongruence effects across video and advertisement preferences aggregated across
geographies (cities). Confidence intervals are built using robust standard errors.
Heterogeneity Across Contextual Variables
We now explore the differences in the impact of emotion incongruence across contextual factors
like day of the week and device used. Based on the attention as the theoretical mechanism, we
expect the preference for incongruent ad-video pair to be more, in case, the prior attention is
already high. That’s when the increment in attention from the incongruent ad-video pair will add
up to the already high attention level in hand. We formulate the formal propositions below:
• Proposition 4: The treatment effect (greater engagement with the ad when the ad-video
pair has incongruent emotional content) is higher when the contextual factors provide users
with extra attention & novelty apart from the attention & novelty provided by the treatment
itself (serving an ad with a different emotion than the content video). Therefore, a viewer
26

watching the ad-video combination on a desktop in the first half of the week (from Wednesday
to Sunday) is likely to have a greater effect of incongruent ad video pair.
We test this prediction by using a causal forest (Wager and Athey, 2018) model for assessing the
impact of different heterogeneity effects on the main test statistic. The test statistic is the difference
in the fraction of viewers who reach 25% of the ad between the congruence and incongruence
cohorts. We look for heterogeneous treatment effects across the device being used for watching
the content and the day of the week. User consuming content over desktop during the first half
of the week is expected to have less time in hand and hence, likely to be more actively consuming
the content and pay additional attention to the video ad. The causal forest model partitions the
sample into clusters using these heterogeneity effects, maximizing the difference between CATE
(Conditional Average Treatment Effects) value of these clusters. The results are reported in Figures
11 & 12.
The maximal difference obtained between CATE values using this model were
∆(CAT E) = 0.0028
Notes: We generate dummy variables for each of the heterogeneity effects. Thus the following dummy variables
were made:
• desktop : Equals 1 if the viewing device is desktop and 0 if it is a mobile phone

• Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday: Set according to the day of the week
when the video-ad combination was viewed. If the day is a Tuesday, all set to 0
Figure 11. Heterogeneous Treatment Effects - C
27

Notes: The causal forest was trained with 1,000 honest estimators, with the lower bound for clus-
ter size set to 10,000 samples.
To assess the relative impact of the different heterogeneity effects, we make use of SHAP value
plot for these effects.
Figure 12. SHAP values for Heterogeneous Treatment Effects
Notes: or every dummy variable, the red data points denote the variable set to 1 and blue denote the variable
having value 0. The dummies that have red data points on the positive side tend to increase viewership in the con-
gruence cohort, reducing the CATE. Dummy variables with red points in the negative side reduce viewership in the
congruence cohort, increasing the CATE. Thus we can infer that a viewer watching on a desktop in the first half of
the week shows maximum magnitude of CATE.
Yi is the binary indicator that the user i watched at least 25% of the advertisement; xi is a vector
of covariates (a categorical variable with values desktop and days of the week); wi is the binary
indicator representing whether the ad-video emotions were congruent(0) or incongruent(1). From
the potential outcomes framework, (Yi (1), Yi (0)), represent respectively, the behavioral outcome
of the user i under the treatment and control conditions. We estimate the conditional average
treatment effect function τ (x) = E[Yi (1) - Yi (0) | xi = x]. The CATE function was estimated
using the CausalModel function from the python package dowhy. We then obtain the SHAP values
for the covariates and plot them. The scatter plots for each of the covariaes shows the relative
magnitude and direction of bias that it introduces in the ATE. The CausalModel function also
gives us the maximum value of difference between CATE obtained by partitioning the covariates.
28

Heterogeneity of Impact
In this section, we estimate the characteristics of a user segment that is more likely to be impacted
by incongruent ad-video pairs. We first estimate the conditional average treatment effect (CATE)
on streaming of congruent ad-video pairs. We define a user as relatively “strongly” impacted by
incongruity, if their estimated CATE on congruent ad-video pair is greater in magnitude than the
median estimated CATE in the data, and relatively “weakly” affected otherwise. Next, the ATE
for each sub-group is calculated. Lastly, the averages of the co-variates in compared across the
treatment and control groups (e.g., (Athey and Wager, 2019; Athey et al., 2021; Chernozhukov
et al., 2018)). The CATE is estimated non-parametrically by fitting a causal forest (Athey and
Wager, 2019). In Table 10, we report the individual CATE values for each of the covariates,
confirming the theoretical hypothesis.
Table 10. Heterogeneous Treatment Effects
Weak group CATE Strong group CATE Difference

later half of week 0.00302** first half of week 0.00447*** 0.00145
(2.73) (3.92)
desktop 0.00255* mobile 0.00305** 0.00050
(2.41) (2.58)
Notes: Strong subgroup has users whose estimated CATE on congruent ad-video pair is greater in
magnitude than the median estimated CATE in the data . Robust standard errors in parenthesis.
7 Robustness
7.1 Statistical Considerations
Bootstrapped Test Statistics
The main test statistic here is the difference in the fraction of viewers who reached 25 % of the ad
between the congruence and incongruence cohorts. Though we have an adequate sample size by
virtue of which the standard results based on the Central Limit Theorem work, we seek to verify the
statistical significance of the results with greater confidence. Therefore, we simulate exact p-value
that does not assume normal approximation. We simulate the sampling distribution of the test
statistic assuming the null hypothesis is true. The null hypothesis is that the emotion incongruence
has no effect. We lay out the procedure in the next few sentences. Firstly, we do block sampling at
29

the user-level (with replacement). Specifically, we sample two datasets from the congruence group,
each with 20% of the sample size of the group. We compute the difference in the test statistic
for these two datasets, and repeat this procedure 10,000 times to obtain 10,000 such differences.
The Figure 13 plots the empirical CDF of these differences, representing the distribution of the
test statistic under the null. We denote this empirical CDF as F d (d). The test statistic value
is 0.0391% (represented as vertical red lines on the plot). Expressed further, the probability of
encountering a value more extreme than 0.391% under the null, F d (−0.00391) + 1 − F d (0.00391),
is 0.0002. This is in agreement with the p-values computed by the normal approximation. Overall,
we conclude that there is a robust statistically significant difference in the ad completion rates
between the treatment and the control group.
Figure 13. Computing simulated p-values
Notes: The Figure plots the empirical CDF of these differences, representing the distribution of
the test statistic under the null.
Type-S, Type-M and Type-III Errors
P-values may prove to be unreliable while testing our null hypothesis. This is where Gelman and
Carlin (2014) concept of Type-III and Type-M errors comes into picture. Type - S error is the
probability that the estimate has the incorrect sign, even if it is statistically significantly different
30

from zero. The Exaggeration Ratio (expected Type- M error)is the expectation of the absolute
value of the estimate divided by the effect size, if statistically significantly different from zero.
In our analysis, we use Aklin’s STATA implementation of the Gelman and Carlin (2014) error
analysis method. For getting the the error-rates, we need to estimate the effect size of the sample
and calculate the standard deviation/standard error in the estimated effect size of the sample. We
use Cohen’s D for estimating the effect size.
Cohen’s D and Standard Error
Cohen’s D defines the effect size of a sample by comparing two data-sets. Cohen’s D is defined as:
x1 − x2
d= ∗
ss
(n1 − 1)s21 + (n2 − 1)s22
s∗ =
n1 + n2 − 2
s
n1 + n2 d2
SE ≈ +
n1 n2 2(n1 + n2 )
where d is the estimated effect size, x1 ; x2 are the means of the samples, n1 ; n2 are the sizes of the
two samples, s1 ; s2 are the standard deviations of the two samples and SE represents the standard
error in the effect size estimate.
Process for Calculating Type-S and Type-M error rates
In our analysis, we first split the data on the basis of cohorts. We remove some outliers with
fewer observations. We only select those cohorts which have larger number of observations and
the number of observations in each cohort is almost the same. The number of observations in each
cohort is made same via bootstrapping. After this, we take every possible pair of cohorts and note
their cohen’s d and standard error. Finally, we take the average of the Cohen’s d and the standard
error. Using the obtained effect size estimate and the standard error, we calculate the Type-S and
Type-M errors.
Results and their Interpretation
• Effect Size Estimate = Average value of Cohen’s D = 0.009
• Standard Error = 0.001
31

• α = 0.05 (if p< α then we reject the null hypothesis.)
• Number of Simulations that we perform while calculating the error rates = 10,000.
We perform around 10,000 replications of the measure of probability that the incongruence
effect is overstated. In each replication, where the incongruence effect is estimated to be statis-
tically significantly different from zero, the absolute value of the estimated incongruence effect is
divided by A = 0.398 (effect size) to obtain a ratio. The distribution of these ratios across 10,000
replications is plotted in Figure 14 below. The mean ratio is 1.000014 (a low value according to
Gelman and Carlin (2014)
Figure 14. Assessment of the Overstatement of Treatment Effect
Notes: The distribution of exaggeration ratios across 10,000 replications.
7.2 Are the Effects Driven by Advertisements themselves and not by the incongruity
between the emotions of the ads and content video?
Table 11 reports whether there is support for an alternative hypothesis for the difference in out-
comes between incongruent and congruent groups by positing stronger emotions to the ad itself
and not by virtue of an ad’s emotion being aligned with the emotion of the placement video.
32

For instance, one possibility is that persuasiveness of the emotions differ based on the valence of
the emotion (Lau-Gesk and Meyers-Levy, 2009) with sad emotion being more persuasive (Kramer
et al., 2014). The evidence suggests this is not the main phenomenon driving the results.
Table 11. Understanding the Persuasiveness of Ad Emotions
Dependent variable:
First Q Mid Third Q Complete

(1) (2) (3) (4)
Sad -0.00374∗∗ -0.00051 -0.00058 -0.00027
(0.00178) (0.00178) (0.00178) (0.00177)
Notes: The Table above reports outcome measures regressed against Ad emotion. Ad Emotions are categorised into
happy and sad based on their emotion scores. Happy ads act as a reference for the above regression, and coefficients
for sad ads are reported with respect to happy ads. ∗ p<0.1; ∗∗ p<0.05; ∗∗∗ p<0.01
7.3 Are incongruent effects simply an artefact of users trying to regulate their emo-
tions?
Prior research suggests that consumption of extreme valence emotions make users look for alle-
viating, repairing, or managing an emotion in the short term, also known as emotion regulation
(Kemp and Kopp, 2011). Therefore, to regulate their emotions, users who consume extreme emo-
tions through placement videos for longer period of time are more likely to opt for an ad with an
opposite valence emotion. This is not what we see in the data. In fact, we see that the incongruent
ad-video pairs perform better for shorter placement videos compared to the longer ad-video pairs.
Table 12 reports the results. Further, Table 25 reports the results for the short length videos,
Table 26 reports the results for the medium length videos and Table 27 reports the results for the
long length videos.
33

Table 12. Heterogeneity across the Length of Placement Videos
Dependent variable:

(1) (2) (3) (4)
group = Incongruent 0.00423∗∗∗ 0.00740∗∗∗ 0.00796∗∗∗ 0.00887∗∗∗
(0.00118) (0.00127) (0.00131) (0.00132)
length = Q2 0.02439∗∗∗ 0.03793∗∗∗ 0.04409∗∗∗ 0.04845∗∗∗

(0.00121) (0.00129) (0.00133) (0.00135)
length = Q3 0.02461∗∗∗ 0.03965∗∗∗ 0.04666∗∗∗ 0.05105∗∗∗

(0.00098) (0.00108) (0.00112) (0.00115)
group = Incongruent, length = Q2 -0.00398∗∗ -0.00895∗∗∗ -0.00952∗∗∗ -0.01092∗∗∗

(0.00201) (0.00210) (0.00215) (0.00218)
group = Incongruent, length = Q3 -0.00256∗ -0.00703∗∗∗ -0.00595∗∗∗ -0.00689∗∗∗

(0.00154) (0.00166) (0.00172) (0.00176)
Constant 0.80270∗∗∗ 0.70165∗∗∗ 0.63003∗∗∗ 0.57480∗∗∗

(0.00267) (0.00268) (0.00267) (0.00265)
Note: ∗ p<0.1; ∗∗ p<0.05; ∗∗∗ p<0.01
Notes: The Table above reports results for the different lengths of the placement videos. Re-
gressions where an indicator for treatment (Incongruent)/control (Congruent) is interacted with
a categorical variable for the length of the placement video. The placement videos are further
divided into quartiles, Q1 , Q2 , Q3 & Q4 . Q1 denotes placement videos with length < 60s, Q2 de-
notes placement videos with length = 60s and Q3 denotes placement videos with length > 60s.
The number of videos in each quartile, Q1 , Q2 , Q3 is 8,9 and 10 respectively. Complete congruence
with length ∈ Q1 is taken as the reference group and all coefficients are reported with respect to
it.∗ p<0.1; ∗∗ p<0.05; ∗∗∗ p<0.01
34

8 Conclusions
In this study, we present the first field-based direct evidence of the effect of ad-video emotional
incongruence ad-video on user engagement with the ad. Our empirical analysis is based on a
field experiment that we designed and implemented on a video and advertising delivery platform.
The empirical results provide evidence for substantively greater engagement in the incongruent
condition. We find evidence consistent with greater attention to the ad when the ad is emotionally
incongruent or mismatched with the content video. We don’t find evidence for emotional regulation
being the mechanism driving the results.
The limitations of this study include our inability to study behavioral outcomes downstream
of ad engagement, such aa visits to the advertiser’s website or purchase of the advertised product
due to the nature of our partner platform, and the inability of tracking consumers after they have
finished viewing the ad. A second limitation is the nature of the platform, where the video and
ad might be playing without the consumer necessarily engaging with it actively. This leads to an
overestimation of engagement, though not of the treatment effect itself.
35

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Online Appendix
A Creating the Analysis Dataset
Impression Definition
All ad impressions involved in the experiment are preceded by a video that was shown to the
end user. Each impression thus, is characterised by both its own emotion, and the emotion of
the video it followed. Since individual user level events are not logged, we resort to leveraging
IP addresses and user-agents (browser, devices) to reconstruct user actions. There are 15,16,553
unique IP addresses, and 21,22,598 unique combinations of IP addresses and user-agents indicating
that there are few IP addresses associated with more than one device. We define the ”viewer”
of an impression as the combination of user-agent and IP address that has contiguous logged
events associated with a particular video and related impression. For example, in Table [], IP
1.186.120.21 started watching a video (Video-ID: V1) on his iPhone at 7:03:25, which was then
followed by an advertisement(Ad-ID: A1) which the end user only watched till midpoint, since no
further events were logged. Most analysis is based on events logged after the user started watching
the advertisement. It should be noted that not all videos lead to ad impressions, since completing
the video is a prerequisite to the ad being shown. There are a total of 3.5 million ad impressions
while there are more than 12 million video impressions.
Row Number IP User-Agent Video-ID Ad-ID Event Date Time

1 1.186.120.21 iPhone V1 start 20210816 7:03:25
2 1.186.120.21 iPhone V1 first-quartile 20210816 7:03:40
3 1.186.120.21 iPhone V1 midpoint 20210816 7:03:55
4 1.186.120.21 iPhone V1 unmute 20210816 7:04:00
5 1.186.120.21 iPhone V1 third-quartile 20210816 7:04:10
6 1.186.120.21 iPhone V1 complete 20210816 7:04:25
7 1.186.120.21 iPhone V1 A1 start 20210816 7:04:26
8 1.186.120.21 iPhone V1 A1 firstQuartile 20210816 7:04:46
9 1.186.120.21 iPhone V1 A1 midpoint 20210816 7:05:08
Notes: The Table above shows the activity of a particular IP address, IP 1.186.120.21,on his iPhone on 16th Au-
gust, 2021.
Outcome Variables
Our goal is to delineate unique ad impressions from raw data and analyse associated outcomes
for each impression and experiment group. For such analysis, we need a table with each unique
40

impression with its associated outcomes and experiment group. A unique impression is charac-
terised by its IP, User-Agent, Video-ID, Ad-ID and start time (impression x Experiment group
x outcomes). For each impression, we study 4 main outcomes: if the user reached first quartile,
midpoint, third quartile or completed watching the advertisement. We also have certain additional
information for each impression, like the city and country where it is being viewed.
Data files available from vdo to construct this dataset
1. Event Logs: We have a large number of log files, which have accounts of all events logged by
the firm for a particular time frame.
2. Video and Ad characteristics: Emotion scores for all videos and ads part of the experiment.
B Randomization Checks
Quantile-plot of the Estimated p-values for Occurrence of Advertisements across video

emotions
Figure 15. Quantile-plot of the Estimated p-values for Occurrence of Advertisements across videos
of Happy and Sad emotions
Notes: The figure plots the estimated p-values against a uniform CDF (45 degree line). We consider the null
hypothesis that the proportion of different advertisements shown is same irrespective of the video emotion being
happy or sad. We perform p-test for proportions on all the advertisements and obtain the p values. The figure shows
that the p-values are uniformly distributed between 0 and 1, which is what we expect if the proportion of different
advertisements displayed is not systematically different across the two video emotions. A Kolmogorov-Smirnov test
is unable to reject that the p-values are uniformly distributed (p-value=0.35)
41

Quantile-plot of the Estimated p-values for Occurrence of Advertisements across co-
variates
We check for randomisation of advertisements across the different covariates considered for establishing heteroge-
neous treatment effects.
Figure 16. Quantile-plot of the Estimated p-values for Occurrence of Advertisements across de-
vices(ks test p-value 0.09)
Notes: The figure plots the estimated p-values against a uniform CDF (45 degree line). We consider the null
hypothesis that the proportion of different advertisements shown is same irrespective of the device. We perform
p-test for proportions on all the advertisements and obtain the p values. The figure shows that the p-values
are uniformly distributed between 0 and 1, which is what we expect if the proportion of different advertisements
displayed is not systematically different across the device type. A Kolmogorov-Smirnov test is unable to reject that
the p-values are uniformly distributed (p-value=0.09)
42

Figure 17. Quantile-plot of the Estimated p-values for Occurrence of Advertisements across days
of the week : Monday (ks test p-value 0.06) and Wednesday (ks test p-value 0.62)
Notes: Panel:A: The figure plots the estimated p-values against a uniform CDF (45 degree line). We consider
the null hypothesis that the proportion of different advertisements shown is same on Monday. We perform p-test
for proportions on all the advertisements and obtain the p values. The figure shows that the p-values are uniformly
distributed between 0 and 1, which is what we expect if the proportion of different advertisements displayed is not
systematically different on Monday. A Kolmogorov-Smirnov test is unable to reject that the p-values are uniformly
distributed (p-value=0.06)
Panel:B: The figure plots the estimated p-values against a uniform CDF (45 degree line). We consider the null
hypothesis that the proportion of different advertisements shown is same on Wednesday. We perform p-test for
proportions on all the advertisements and obtain the p values. The figure shows that the p-values are uniformly
distributed between 0 and 1, which is what we expect if the proportion of different advertisements displayed is
not systematically different on Wednesday. A Kolmogorov-Smirnov test is unable to reject that the p-values are
uniformly distributed (p-value=0.62)
43

of the week : Thursday (ks test p-value 0.11) and Friday (ks test p-value 0.13)
the null hypothesis that the proportion of different advertisements shown is same on Thursday. We perform p-test
systematically different on Monday. A Kolmogorov-Smirnov test is unable to reject that the p-values are uniformly
Panel:B: The figure plots the estimated p-values against a uniform CDF (45 degree line). We consider the
null hypothesis that the proportion of different advertisements shown is same on Friday. We perform p-test for
distributed between 0 and 1, which is what we expect if the proportion of different advertisements displayed is
not systematically different on Wednesday. A Kolmogorov-Smirnov test is unable to reject that the p-values are
uniformly distributed (p-value=0.13)
44

of the week : Saturday (ks test p-value 0.91) and Sunday (ks test p-value 0.27)
the null hypothesis that the proportion of different advertisements shown is same on Thursday. We perform p-test
systematically different on Saturday. A Kolmogorov-Smirnov test is unable to reject that the p-values are uniformly
Panel:B: The figure plots the estimated p-values against a uniform CDF (45 degree line). We consider the
null hypothesis that the proportion of different advertisements shown is same on Friday. We perform p-test for
systematically different on Sunday. A Kolmogorov-Smirnov test is unable to reject that the p-values are uniformly
Regression F-test p-value

Ad Emotion ∼ Video Emotion (H, S) 0.802
Day ∼ Experimental Condition (HH, HS, SH, SS) 0.227
City ∼ Experimental Condition (HH, HS, SH, SS) 0.279
Device ∼ Experimental Condition (HH, HS, SH, SS) 0.511
Day ∼ Congruence (Congruent, Incongruent) 0.498
City ∼ Congruence (Congruent, Incongruent) 0.382
Hour ∼ Congruence (Congruent, Incongruent) 0.547
Notes: The Table reports on results from several regressions. For each regression, p-values from an F-test to re-
ject H0 : the covariate has no effect on the independent variable are reported. For example, for the first regression,
a very high p-value of 0.802 demonstrates that the null hypothesis cannot be rejected, and hence Ad Emotion is
45

independent of the emotion of the video played before it.
C Regressions for Heterogeneous Treatment Effects

Operating System and Devices
Table 13. Regression Results for Mac
Dependent variable:

(1) (2) (3) (4)
Incongruent 0.00028 -0.00175 0.00273 0.00340
(0.00250) (0.00290) (0.00306) (0.00317)
Note: ∗ p<0.1; ∗∗ p<0.05; ∗∗∗ p<0.01
Notes: The Table reports on results from several regressions. In the first regression, the dependent variable is a
0/1 indicator of if the video was watched till the first quartile. The standard errors are in parentheses next to the
coefficient estimates and are clustered by clustered by user identification for cookied impressions and by fingerprint
identification (unique IP number, OS, browser, language, and cookie-type combination). Additionally, below each
coefficient in square brackets, we report (1) 95% confidence interval of coefficient. In Column(2), the dependent
variable is a 0/1 indicator of if the video was watched till the second quartile. In Column(3), the dependent vari-
able is a 0/1 indicator of if the video was watched till the third quartile. In Column(4), the dependent variable is
a 0/1 indicator of if the video was watched till the fourth quartile. ∗ p<0.1; ∗∗ p<0.05; ∗∗∗ p<0.01
Table 14. Regression Results for Windows
Dependent variable:

(1) (2) (3) (4)
Incongruent 0.00369∗∗∗ 0.00426∗∗∗ 0.00501∗∗∗ 0.00512∗∗∗
(0.00073) (0.00083) (0.00088) (0.00091)
Note: ∗ p<0.1; ∗∗ p<0.05; ∗∗∗ p<0.01
46

Table 15. Regression Results for Android Operating System
Dependent variable:

(1) (2) (3) (4)
Incongruent 0.00268∗∗∗ 0.00352∗∗∗ 0.00456∗∗∗ 0.00498∗∗∗
(0.00083) (0.00091) (0.00093) (0.00092)
Note: ∗ p<0.1; ∗∗ p<0.05; ∗∗∗ p<0.01
Table 16. Regression Results for iPhone
Dependent variable:

(1) (2) (3) (4)
Incongruent 0.00013 -0.00479 0.00195 -0.00047
(0.00491) (0.00545) (0.00555) (0.00546)
Note: ∗ p<0.1; ∗∗ p<0.05; ∗∗∗ p<0.01
47

Table 17. Mobile
Dependent variable:

(1) (2) (3) (4)
Incongruent 0.00261∗∗∗ 0.00330∗∗∗ 0.00449∗∗∗ 0.00483∗∗∗
(0.00082) (0.00090) (0.00091) (0.00091)
Note: ∗ p<0.1; ∗∗ p<0.05; ∗∗∗ p<0.01
Table 18. Desktop
Dependent variable:

(1) (2) (3) (4)
Incongruent 0.00329∗∗∗ 0.00376∗∗∗ 0.00459∗∗∗ 0.00474∗∗∗
(0.00072) (0.00082) (0.00086) (0.00089)
Note: ∗ p<0.1; ∗∗ p<0.05; ∗∗∗ p<0.01
48

Regressions for Consumer Preferences
Table 19. HVC (High Video Consumption)
Dependent variable:

(1) (2) (3) (4)
Incongruent 0.00341∗∗∗ 0.00405∗∗∗ 0.00531∗∗∗ 0.00555∗∗∗
(0.00066) (0.00075) (0.00079) (0.00081)
Note: ∗ p<0.1; ∗∗ p<0.05; ∗∗∗ p<0.01
Table 20. LVC (Low Video Consumption
Dependent variable:

(1) (2) (3) (4)
Incongruent 0.00492∗∗∗ 0.00648∗∗∗ 0.00770∗∗∗ 0.00859∗∗∗
(0.00101) (0.00111) (0.00115) (0.00116)
Note: ∗ p<0.1; ∗∗ p<0.05; ∗∗∗ p<0.01
49

Table 21. HAP (Happy Ad Preference)
Dependent variable:

(1) (2) (3) (4)
Incongruent -0.00418 -0.00572∗ -0.00735∗∗ -0.01012∗∗∗
(0.00276) (0.00311) (0.00327) (0.00331)
Note: ∗ p<0.1; ∗∗ p<0.05; ∗∗∗ p<0.01
Table 22. Sad Ad Preference
Dependent variable:

(1) (2) (3) (4)
Incongruent 0.00424∗∗∗ 0.00526∗∗∗ 0.00662∗∗∗ 0.00718∗∗∗
(0.00056) (0.00063) (0.00067) (0.00068)
Note: ∗ p<0.1; ∗∗ p<0.05; ∗∗∗ p<0.01
50

Table 23. Happy Video Preference
Dependent variable:

(1) (2) (3) (4)
Incongruent 0.00369∗∗∗ 0.00462∗∗∗ 0.00591∗∗∗ 0.00629∗∗∗
(0.00056) (0.00063) (0.00067) (0.00068)
Note: ∗ p<0.1; ∗∗ p<0.05; ∗∗∗ p<0.01
Table 24. Sad Video Preference
Dependent variable:

(1) (2) (3) (4)
Incongruent 0.00734∗∗∗ 0.00798∗∗∗ 0.00880∗∗∗ 0.01013∗∗∗
(0.00259) (0.00290) (0.00309) (0.00320)
Note: ∗ p<0.1; ∗∗ p<0.05; ∗∗∗ p<0.01
51

52

Effect of incongruence across the Lengths of the Placement Videos
Table 25. Short Video Emotions
Dependent variable:

(1) (2) (3) (4)
Incongruent 0.00423∗∗∗ 0.00740∗∗∗ 0.00796∗∗∗ 0.00887∗∗∗
(0.00118) (0.00127) (0.00131) (0.00132)
Constant 0.80270∗∗∗ 0.70165∗∗∗ 0.63003∗∗∗ 0.57480∗∗∗

(0.00267) (0.00268) (0.00267) (0.00265)
Note: ∗ p<0.1; ∗∗ p<0.05; ∗∗∗ p<0.01
Notes: Regressions for videos ∈ Q1 .
Table 26. Medium Video Emotions
Dependent variable:

(1) (2) (3) (4)
Incongruent 0.00025 -0.00155 -0.00157 -0.00205
(0.00126) (0.00135) (0.00138) (0.00141)
Constant 0.82709∗∗∗ 0.73958∗∗∗ 0.67413∗∗∗ 0.62325∗∗∗

(0.00266) (0.00268) (0.00269) (0.00269)
Note: ∗ p<0.1; ∗∗ p<0.05; ∗∗∗ p<0.01
Notes: Regressions for videos ∈ Q2 .
53

Table 27. Long Video Emotions
Dependent variable:

(1) (2) (3) (4)
Incongruent 0.00167∗ 0.00037 0.00201∗ 0.00198∗
(0.00090) (0.00101) (0.00107) (0.00110)
Constant 0.82731∗∗∗ 0.74130∗∗∗ 0.67670∗∗∗ 0.62586∗∗∗

(0.00262) (0.00265) (0.00268) (0.00270)
Note: ∗ p<0.1; ∗∗ p<0.05; ∗∗∗ p<0.01
Notes: Regressions for videos ∈ Q3
54

Emotional matching between videos and ads: Does incongruence lead to better engagement

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Does Emotional Matching Between Video Ads and Content

Lead to Better Engagement: Evidence from a Large-Scale

Keywords Video Advertising, Emotions, Contextual Advertising, Congruence, Consumer En-

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Typically, which ad is shown in a given content video is determined by a second-price auction,

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Notes: The Figure above shows a schematic of the experimental design.

3.1 Video & Ad Selection

Table 1. Content Videos and Ads

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Table 2. Inter-Rater Agreement

Notes: The Table above reports Krippendorff’s Alpha & Kendall’s W.

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4.2 Outcome Measures

Table 4. Outcomes across Happy and Sad Ads

Ad-Emotion Count First Quartile Mid Point Third Quartile Complete

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Video-Emotion Count First Quartile Mid Point Third Quartile Complete

Table 6. Outcomes across Video & Ad Impression Distribution

Cohort Total Impressions % First Quartile % Midpoint % Third Quartile % Complete

4.3 Main Effects

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First Quartile Midpoint Third Quartile Complete

Constant 0.818∗∗∗ 0.726∗∗∗ 0.659∗∗∗ 0.606∗∗∗

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WatchBehaviori = α + βIncongruenceConditioni + γXi + ϵi

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Coefficient for IncongruenceCondition:

Mid Point 0.00483∗∗∗ 0.00480∗∗∗ 0.00299∗∗∗ 0.00476∗∗∗ 0.00288∗∗∗

Third Quartile 0.00609∗∗∗ 0.00603∗∗∗ 0.00396∗∗∗ 0.00601∗∗∗ 0.00387∗∗∗

Complete 0.00652∗∗∗ 0.00647∗∗∗ 0.00435∗∗∗ 0.00645∗∗∗ 0.00428∗∗∗

∗ p<0.1; ∗∗ p<0.05; ∗∗∗ p<0.01

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First Quartile Midpoint Third Quartile Complete

Constant 0.820∗∗∗ 0.729∗∗∗ 0.662∗∗∗ 0.610∗∗∗

5 Examination of Power of Experiment

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Figure 4. Bootstrapped Power Estimates - A

Notes: Examination of Power of Experiment - A

Figure 5. Bootstrapped Power Estimates - B

Notes: Examination of Power of Experiment - B

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Theoretical Underpinnings of the Mechanism

Treatment Effects Across Different Incongruent Ad-Video Groups

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Heterogeneity Across Geographies

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Figure 9. Heterogeneous Treatment Effects - B

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Heterogeneity Across Contextual Variables

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• desktop : Equals 1 if the viewing device is desktop and 0 if it is a mobile phone