Slow motion is a popular video editing tool used to enhance short-form videos (eg. reels, stories, GIFs), which are commonly found in media entertainment and marketing communications. This research shows that slow motion increases the virality (eg. likes, votes, views) of short-form videos and boosts brand liking, choice, and willingness to pay. The effect occurs because slow motion enhances the hedonic component of the viewing experience via processing fluency. By documenting how the success of slow motion is subject to moderators, this work shows marketers, entertainment producers, and everyday people how to use slow motion more effectively.
Across a large-scale field data set and 6 experiments, the authors highlight that slow motion is:
especially effective when applied to short-form videos that are inherently pleasant and that involve complex movements that are difficult to perceive at regular speed. However, even simple movements benefit from slow motion when content creators zoom in on subtle movements to increase complexity. Moreover, slow motion is more effective when viewers engage in less elaborate processing.
Finally, the authors show that the perceived disfluency of fast-motion editing is effective at boosting brand evaluations when viewers desire excitement.
…Although slow motion is a ubiquitous esthetic effect, there is little scientific guidance on how this technique shapes the hedonic nature of the viewing experience. Based on how frequently marketers and everyday people use slow motion, it is reasonable to expect that it improves the esthetic appeal of dynamic visual content. Yet, research suggests that slowing consumption experiences does not improve evaluations [see Table 1].
Radio broadcasts, for instance, are liked more when sped up rather than played at slower or regular speed (LaBarbera and Mac1979; 2006), which suggests that the slower presentation of visual content might be experienced as boring. In television commercials, scenes of actors eating chocolate or shampooing their hair in slow motion seem “fake” and “posed”, which lowers product evaluations ( et al 2021). Based on these findings, slow-motion short-form videos might lead to negative consumer responses despite their widespread usage…cognitive inferences formed by viewers about slow-motion imagery have been studied most extensively. In particular, slow motion makes displayed action appear more deliberate and intentional because it gives the false impression that an actor had more time to premeditate ( et al 2016). Jurors, for instance, perceive a shooter as acting with greater intent when the surveillance video of the crime is played in slow (vs. regular) speed ( et al 2016), and referees give harsher penalties when fouls are replayed in slow motion (vs. regular speed; et al 2018). In television commercials, slow-motion tactics thus backfire because behaviors that appear intentional also seem extrinsically motivated and thus insincere ( et al 2021). An actor’s smile after a bite of dessert, for example, appears more posed (ie. fake) in slow motion than in regular speed.
…Empirical Overview: We test our hypotheses using more than 600 short-form videos spanning a wide range of topics (eg. sports, nature, food) and examine consumers’ behavior on a GIF-sharing platform. The videos are just 1–5 seconds long and display movements repeatedly and continually in an infinite loop, which is representative of short-form videos on social media (eg. TikTok, Instagram) and controls for presentation duration.
7 studies examine the effect of slow motion on liking, indicators of virality (eg. votes, views, likes), willingness to pay (WTP), brand liking, and choice. We provide evidence for the fluency account in the lab and field and via mediation and moderation.
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Study 1 shows that videos are liked more in slow motion (vs. regular speed) and documents that processing fluency statistically explains this finding.
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Studies 2a–c and…
Consistent with fluency theory, slow motion only increases liking for content high in dynamic complexity (Study 2a). Yet, even simple scenes can benefit from slow motion if content creators zoom in on the action to increase dynamic complexity (Study 2b). Moreover, slow motion only increases liking when the underlying content is positively (vs. negatively) valenced (Study 2c).
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Study 3 test content-related moderators of the effect of slow motion on liking.
…Our field data set (Study 3) conceptually replicates both content-related moderators on a GIF-sharing platform that we analyze in terms of views, votes, and ratings.
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Studies 4a & 4b examine consumer-related moderators of the effect of slow motion on brand liking and consequential choices.
Slow-motion videos increase brand liking and choice, but the effect was particularly pronounced among consumers who engaged in less (vs. more) deliberate processing (Study 4a). Finally, Study 4b shows that relatively disfluent regular-speed videos can boost brand evaluations when consumers seek excitement.
The Appendix reports means, standard deviations, and sample sizes for all conditions and all dependent measures. We also provide hyperlinks to all video stimuli (Web Appendix B). All data sets and R scripts are available on OSF. No participants were excluded from the analyses.