Unruly launches emotional targeting tool in SEA

Unruly today rolled out its emotional engagement tool Unruly Custom Audiences (UCA) across Southeast Asia.

UCA analyses data from Unruly EQ, the video ad-tech company’s content evaluation tool, to help advertisers target consumers most likely to engage emotionally with a specific video. Campaigns using UCA have seen an up to 74 percent lift in brand favourability, and an 80 percent rise in purchase intent, the company said.

Unruly said UCA can also help marketers connect with hard-to-reach audiences, or those that prefer competitor products, and increase earned media impressions, brand recall and purchase intent.

The company described the tool's function this way: 

Audiences are first defined, and identified among a survey panel of 500 nationally representative respondents. Unruly then profiles each audience, identifying the top characteristics for targeting—such as gender, age, income, personality type and contextual interests. When Unruly distributes the campaign, targeting is applied according to the profile of each audience, through a mixture of 1st and 3rd party data segments.

“Emotion matters in marketing,” said Phil Townend, APAC CCO at Unruly. “It creates values and sets preferences. Inspires action. Drives sales. With the launch of this unique targeting capability, Unruly advertisers now know how, why, where and with whom their ads are resonating.”

GroupM is the first agency group to adopt UCA in Southeast Asia, with 10 clients using it across FMCG, automotive, fast food and financial services.

Matt Wigham, GroupM APAC deputy head of investment, said: “Our clients are extremely excited to be able to trial and evaluate this new methodology for identifying and targeting key audiences at a campaign level to enhance the brand impact and drive greater returns in their campaigns.”