Today, you can spend fifteen minutes and scroll the feed of any social media platform—be it Instagram, Facebook, or Youtube—and you will find at least one thing in common: videos are automatically playing, many times without sound. Welcome to the era of soundless ads, where success is contingent on silence and grabbing attention in silence. Researches by Digiday state that up to 85% of videos on Facebook are viewed without sound. Brands are quickly adapting to a world where visuals are doing the work for them.
Significance of Soundless Ads
Mobile-first consumption has fundamentally changed how users interact with content. Most social media users are scrolling in public, during a commute or at work—generally with sound off by default. In those settings where silence is required, an ad that is heavily audio-dependent has a high chance of being skipped immediately. So, brands must be certain that their message will land without the use of headphones. Redefining expectations about sound isn’t simply about convenience. It’s about accessibility and engagement. Platforms like Instagram and LinkedIn and many others, allow video to autoplay without sound—so what does that mean for brands? If an ad can’t communicate its core message visually in the first 3 seconds, it will be ignored.
Creating for Silence
To get started on the soundless scroll, it’s time to re-think creative strategy. Here’s what top-performing brands are doing:
Captions and subtitles: While this one may be obvious, it is still under-utilized as an option. There is no doubt that clear, well-timed captions can improve watch time and comprehension. It is encouraging that TikTok introduced auto-captioning features to allow content creators to make their videos more accessible and follow along.
Visual storytelling and boldness: You can use visuals, exaggerated body language, product demonstrations and cheeky overlay text to communicate emotion and storytelling effectively.
Motion graphics and animations: Utilising quick animation or movement, formatted transitions helps to grab attention quickly. It is also beneficial if you need to break down more complicated information in ‘look and feel’ terms.
Silent hooks within the first 3 seconds: Users usually immediately judge whether to continue watching, which means leading with a strong visual cue using unexpected movement or energy, is vital.
Example: If you take a look at the way that Apple shoots their product highlight videos, they show the features ‘in action’, utilise smooth transitions, interesting typographical choices and no voiceovers- this is all created to run efficiently in the mute feed.
The New Challenge: Keeping It Engaging Without Sound
Silent ads challenge brands to think innovatively beyond typical advertising conventions. Just think about it. If an ad can create interest in silence, then that’s a victory. It’s not just flashy images and catchy songs anymore; it is all about telling stories and creating emotion with imagery that can stand alone without sound. And when we’re all faced with ubiquitous distraction, ads that demand attention without any sound are really more disruptive and harder to ignore.
Adidas’ ‘Impossible is Nothing’ campaign uses powerful visual metaphors, but also uses quick high-energy cuts, it can still be enjoyed without any audio. The intention is not to lose the emotional punch, but to innovate in the spirit of constraints where silence is the ultimate brands test.
The Road Ahead
At the end of the day, the future of soundless advertising is not in developing content that is ‘silent’ but in creating content that goes beyond sound. It’s about the flexibility of how we tell stories—the ability to construct these stories for an audience who may or may not be engaged with the audio. With technology continuing to advance, expect more and more interactive, immersive and soundless experiences, such as augmented reality (AR) advertising or videos that adapt to the user profile in real-time based on browsing behaviour. The mute button is not an obstacle, it’s an opportunity to rethink the rules of engagement and create advertisements that communicate in different, more inclusive ways.
(The author, Delphin Varghese, is the co-founder & Chief Revenue Officer of AdCounty Media.)
