What you need to know: 

• YouTube is as ever gunning for a bigger slice of brand’s video budgets, claiming it drives higher ‘good engagement’ than others by putting users in ‘flow state’.
• Per Google research manager Dr Deborah Ko, it describes the “rare, beautiful moment when you’re just completely immersed, and at the end of it, you feel energised”. 
• Some question that pitch, given the number of ads now running on YouTube. But the positioning is backed by new research via Kantar, presented at its upfront-style Brandcast pitch earlier this month. Claims included that viewers in flow state scored 28 points higher on brand awareness after viewing an ad, and campaigns were seven times more impactful when audiences were highly receptive to the platform. 
• Whether it will be enough to move the dial on client’s media budgets is another question.
• Asked how YouTube and Kantar’s ‘Flow State’ sat with neuromarketing research, Neuro Insight’s principal consultant Peter Pynta suggested the survey method can make for broad sweeping insights – and ones for which measuring transference into advertising environments is particularly difficult.
• Media buyers said the theory makes sense, but many were sceptical as to whether that would transfer across to advertising – and said disruptive ad spots are basically counter productive to the central premise.
• Nodding to YouTube’s play for CTV budgets, Sparro’s Ervin Poernama questioned whether audiences watching the big screen would even stick around for ad breaks. 
• Atomic 212’s Asier Carazo thinks it might be a stretch to claim more attention than any other platform, that YouTube is hammering its shorts formats and has ramped up the number of ads being shown.
• His colleague James Dixon suggested flow state could influence channel investment but said the work requires “a lot more work on the validation”.
• OMD’s Marelle Salib sees a bigger opportunity for YouTube in branded collaborations with creators which she thinks can tap ‘flow state’ engagement without the disruptive 6 second bumpers.

Google went hard on Connected TV at its annual Brandcast this month in a bid to carve out a bigger chunk of spend on the biggest screen of the house as competition heats up from streamers with ad tiers.

The platform touted new research from Analytic Partners that suggests it beats the nearest CTV content provider by 23 per cent on ROI.

Meanwhile, it enlisted Kantar to help qualify a new concept in a bid to woo advertisers. It’s called ‘flow state’ and basically claims audiences on YouTube become more receptive to new information, including advertising, as they go deeper.

In a survey of 1,503 Australian respondents, the research firm found that YouTube audiences had the highest rate of cognitive immersion (‘flow’) compared to other video platforms, scoring at 42 per cent versus Instagram’s 23 per cent, TikTok’s 31 per cent and TV’s 21 per cent.

According to the research, viewers were 2.5 x more likely to choose YouTube when they want to deeply understand a topic, versus other video platforms, and YouTube was the top platform where people felt their time had been well spent.

This is flow… 

Flow is a term coined by Hungarian-American psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi referring to a highly focused mental state conducive to productivity. In Google’s world, flow state describes the state of mind that occurs when people consume content that piques their curiosity.

“It’s that rare, beautiful moment when you’re just completely immersed, and at the end of it, you feel energised,” per Google research manager Dr Deborah Ko. 

Speaking on the Brandcast stage, Ko juxtaposed flow state, the pinnacle of ‘good engagement’, against the ‘bad engagement’ that happens when audiences zone out. While the two may look the same in measurement terms, she claimed “they have vastly different outcomes for brands”.

She called out some key Kantar stats, including that viewers in flow state scored 28 points higher on brand awareness after viewing an ad, and campaigns were seven times more impactful when audiences were highly receptive to the platform.

Hammering home the point, Ko cited that 89 per cent of viewers felt more confident in a purchase they made if they found the information on YouTube, while returns and cancellations were 1.8 times higher when viewers were influenced by platforms other than YouTube.

The inference is that the flow state that viewers experience when they view content on YouTube is transferred to the ad break. But how does that land with other attention research?

Flow vs neuromarketing

Seeking a second opinion on how YouTube’s claims might sit with other media attention and engagement research, Mi3 approached Neuro Insight principal consultant Peter Pynta.

Pynta, who has spent nearly 18 years with the neuromarketing and neuroanalytics firm, hasn’t read the research in full as it’s not been made publicly available, but offered some observations from findings YouTube did share.

He posits that the most interesting indicators of engagement between media channels happen at the granular level – on a second-by-second basis. Thus, “making broad generalisations is very difficult at the macro level because [engagement] changes so much”.

There’s a counterargument to say Pynta may well be biased towards a neuromarketing approach – Neuro Insights’ uses brain-imaging methodology to measure viewer’s response to communications – but he raises some interesting points on the potential shortfalls of the survey method.

“Quantifying psychological media constructs – whilst being the logical next frontier beyond reach and frequency – is very difficult to achieve with surveys. It’s hard enough to recall yesterday’s breakfast (or for that matter any other form of conscious behaviour) let alone our unconscious, automatic media consumption,” he told Mi3. And per Pynta, it’s the unconscious piece that should matter most to marketers.

Even more difficult, he says, is proving that the psychological media construct transfers over to advertising. Pynta advises advertisers that matching ad creative to the ‘neurostate’ of the surrounding environment “is the best way to optimise effectiveness and leverage the psychological attributes of an environment”. Moreover, “Any credible media metrics should be able to measure this specific effect.”

Google’s response took aim at the fact that Pynta had not read the research before weighing in –but to do that, Google would have to make the research publicly available.

“Google and Kantar stand by the research methodology and findings which are robust and based on previous research in this field. Biological indicators alone, like those used in neuromarketing, may not provide a full picture without the subjective narrative, making our approach both helpful and complementary to neuromarketing studies,” said the spokesperson.

“The research found that people in flow states generally process information better and feel more positively about content they see. And compared to other video-based platforms, YouTube is where viewers have the highest rates of flow.” 

Methodologies aside, YouTube is likely to be much more concerned about how its messaging landed with those who control (or influence) the purse strings. So Mi3 asked buyers whether they would be going with the flow.

Flow on effects?

Buyers agreed that the flow state position reaffirmed the way they viewed the platform.

Backing up flow state messaging with research was appreciated, but for some it didn’t go quite far enough to move the dial.

Initiative, agency business partner, Mychal Whittle, says the idea that deep engagement levels on YouTube are ideal for “both awareness and consideration driving activity” is not “revolutionary “– and he’s doubtful it’ll move the dial on spend.

Rather, Whittle says flow state gives brands and agencies a “good sense check on one of its key roles in the mix”.

More rigour required

Others said YouTube hadn’t gone quite far enough to demonstrate how the flow state impacts advertising effectiveness.

“I really loved the attempt to look at the neuroscience of media habits, and it does further the work and the thinking of attention metrics,” per Atomic 212 co-founder and chief digital officer, James Dixon. “But it doesn’t address the elephant in the room, which is, if they’re in such a flow state, how are those ads perceived at that moment?”

“I would align with the fact that flow state is induced by YouTube’s content, but I question whether that extends into the ad breaks, or whether they might actually be perceived as a nuisance in the flow state.”

His point being that “a lot more work is to be done on the validation” if the research is to translate into greater channel investment – and with a little more “diligence and rigour” he thinks it could.

“The attention work from Karen Nielsen-Field is now impacting media planning and discussions with clients in a positive way,” says Dixon. “So, I’d encourage Google [and Kantar] to further this work with deeper research.”

The agency’s chief strategy officer, Asier Carazo, is more sceptical.

“I tend to disagree, because even now they’re pushing YouTube shorts so much, which is basically a version of TikTok. Really, I don’t think you would pay more attention to YouTube than you would pay to any other video platform.”

Anecdotally, he says he finds YouTube to be the most interruptive platform as “you’ve been served way more ads” if you’re not paying for a premium subscription. And unlike TikTok or Instagram, most of them are non-skippable.

Ervin Poernama, senior data and growth specialist at Sparro by Brainlabs, was likewise unconvinced “that a viewer being ‘locked in’ and paying attention to the content” meant they were therefore more engaged with ads, or that YouTube is “more effective than other platforms for short-form video like Meta or TikTok where frequency of reach is the drawcard for advertisers”.

He suggested that users watching a 10-minute video on larger displays like TV or laptop might pick their phone or chat to someone in the room when a one-minute ad spot appears. “Arguably, they’re no more likely to sit and watch all the ads as they would be if they were watching regular free-to-air TV,” per Poernama.

He reckons YouTube might have a “tough time convincing brands to pay for mid-funnel or conversion campaigns” to reach users watching longer videos on the big screen because a second device is required to scan a QR code and shop. For Poernama, that adds another layer of friction that advertisers don’t need to deal with on other social platforms on mobile.   

“Ultimately, we need to spend more time investigating YouTube’s research and doing our own brand lift studies to verify this behaviour. We need more clarity and certainty that reaching users in a content ‘flow state’ will have ROI and improved purchase intent.”

Creator thinking required

OMD Australia’s chief investment officer Marelle Salib suggested flow state as “a really nice way for YouTube to talk about their premium, more engaging content” – i.e. the content that’s mostly viewed on the bigger screen in the house, and for longer periods of time.

“YouTube has a lot of short form content, but there is a lot of longer form, more engaging content that viewers do watch, and that really creates the prime opportunity for brands to capture attention – right when the consumers are most receptive.”

She says OMD has been tapping YouTube’s premium content through YouTube Select for years to “contextually target and really consider the audience that you’re trying to hit to enhance things like engagement or a recall”.

What’s missing from the pitch though is the “bigger opportunity” for direct integration with creators. Branded content collaborations, per Salib, would overcome some of the concerns raised by other buyers – namely the growing number of ads – and ultimately win over a greater number of advertisers.

“How can brands seamlessly integrate into the viewing experience? Because then you’re not disrupting flow, you’re further enhancing the viewers receptiveness.”

Brands however will first need to run the numbers on whether creator collaborations will drive “enough business incrementality” to warrant extra investment in fit-for-purpose creative versus repackaged TVC collateral.

But Salib welcomed YouTube’s heavy focus on its creators in this year’s Brandcast. The launch of a new ‘Creator Takeover’ feature, allowing advertisers to roadblock all but their own advertising on a given channel, could also be evidence for where the platform is headed.  

Assuming that builds, Salib thinks it may start to shift investment as brands look to connect meaningfully with audiences in experiencing ‘flow’ – albeit slowly.

“I do think that we will see more brands using and testing the platform in different ways [beyond] the simple six second bumper and a non-skip, and mostly using your TV assets. I think that we will start to see more creative fit for purpose and more testing in that area.”

But as ever, she says the most important piece for brands is to have measurement in place that “goes beyond media metrics and closes the loop on fuelling business growth”.