Less is more: how video design shapes the effectiveness of green-oriented brand messages on tiktok

Sustainability has become a key driver in consumption choices. Brands increasingly rely on short-form videos on social media to promote eco-friendly products and services, share their green values, or educate consumers on how to behave sustainably. But while videos are ubiquitous on social media, how video design shapes the effectiveness of brand-generated content is unclear. This work investigates how different video designs, from videos featuring only baseline elements to those enriched with text overlays and voice-over, shape consumer engagement of brand messages on social media, as well as whether, how and why the effect might differ in the context of green- (vs. non-green) oriented communication. A combination of automated video, audio, and text analyses with machine learning techniques on a dataset of thousands of TikTok videos posted by top European companies sheds light on these issues. Results show that, overall, using text overlay, voice-over, or both, on top of the baseline elements (i.e., unfolding visuals and caption) increases social media engagement among non-green posts. However, when brands promote green-oriented content, a richer video design (i.e., implementing text overlay, voice-over, or both) backfires, likely due to skepticism and psychological reactance. Findings provide actionable insights for more effective content design on social media, suggesting that a “less is more” approach is a solution to foster engagement with videos promoting sustainability of products, production processes, behaviors or lifestyles.