Is ‘Buster the Boxer’ John Lewis’ most emotionally engaging festive ad?

John Lewis’ “Buster the Boxer” ad is more emotionally engaging than the previous five editions and all other ads from the retailer, according to new research.

The results, from ad tech firm RealEyes, are based on facial recognition technology which measured people’s reactions as they watched the ads.

Buster scored better than 95% of the 5,700 ads ever tested by Realeyes in terms of emotional engagement, which is a combined measure of how the ad scores on attraction, retention, engagement and impact.

Furthermore, it scored in the highest 1% of ads ever tested among women under 30.

It’s the most compelling of the last six John Lewis ads (see chart below), the next best being 2011’s “The Long Wait” which scored better than 89% of ads ever measured.

The scene of Buster on the trampoline is the most engaging scene ever tested for a John Lewis ad.

“Initial industry opinion seems to be that Buster isn’t a ‘rockstar’ edition from John Lewis but consumer’s emotional reaction says otherwise – it’s more engaging than their previous five offerings,” says Mihkel Jaatma, Realeyes’ CEO. “Its success is very much driven by happiness, a significant departure from last year’s melancholic Man on the Moon which even John Lewis admitted may have been too sad.”

Emotion measurement firm Realeyes measured the reactions of 1,700 people across 49 key facial points as they watched the ads via their webcam. The respondents were sourced by audience platform Lucid.

Emotionally engaging performance of John Lewis Xmas ads

www.realeyesit.com