Identifying the effects of vibrancy in Consumer Ads

* Lab-based research study

Leveraging Selective Attention for Ads

A human brain can accommodate only limited amount of information because of the high sensory stimulating environment.

In the case of consumers, when they are sensorily bombarded with so much information, it's the brain's role to pay attention to relevant details and process it.

According to selective attention theories, firstly, the advertisement presented should capture the attention of the viewer. Secondly, the content should be persuasive enough to change the customer’s attitudes positively.

This user research tried to cover the first stage of efficient advertising by looking into how attractive and vibrant ads can lead to increased attention given to the product even when a strong influential distractor is present.

Problem Statement

Based on secondary research through earlier studies on consumer marketing strategies and cognitive attention theories, the following problem statement were hypothesized:

• Is there an attentional shift owing to the vibrancy and appeal of an ad poster?

• What kind of ads are able to pull user's attention from distractive elements?

Research Processes

I Experiment Design:

The design of the experiment was constructed in a way such that it resembles a stimulating environment like that of a supermarket.

• So, the study made use of interesting comic strips (Alie & Charlie) such that there was no pressure exerted on focusing their attention towards ads posted.

• A five-slide video presentation was shown, where each slide had a unique comic and an advertisement.

• The stimulus was presented as a video because it was to check how much can a customer process information within a given time frame.

• This was done to elicit selective attention in customers. Within the time frame the participant is more likely to read the comic strip than look at the Ad. Hence creating more pressure to attention on the distracting element

Control

Experimental

II Recruitment:

• A sample size of 6 students from IIT Gandhinagar volunteered to be a part of the study.

• The participants were divided into two groups (Group A and Group B) by random assignment as control (less vibrant ads) and experimental (vibrant ads) groups.

• The sex ratio was balanced to avoid any biases

• The study was a double-blind experiment.

III Procedure:

Tobii TX 300 eye tracker was used to analyze the intensity of selective attention given to the customary vs rousing ads.

The tracker tracked the participants saccadic eye movements using heat maps and gaze tracking. This data will help us to understand the flow of an user's visual field and their attention levels.

In order to further prove the influence of ads in the two groups, a small survey was conducted.

The questionnaire had 5 basic questions revolving around the prominent highlights of the Ad. That is, questions from the Ad posters were asked to check whether people’s attention unto a novel Ad helped in remembering the details of the Ad presented or not.

IV Study Results

One slide of the video is shown here as an example to show how the results were generated

(a). Customary ad (non-vibrant)

(b) Rousing ad (vibrant):

An example of the heat map from two different groups are given above.

In fig (a), we could see that the eye movements towards a cinnamon powder ad is less when compared to the fig (b) where more eye movements are seen in a jockey advertisement.

Likewise, every slide of the video was analyzed based on the heat map generated and the results showed high eye movements correlating to increased attention for Group B who were presented with rousing ads.

In order to cross verify the intensity in which the ad has gained one’s attention, the survey helped in better understanding the same.

A sample of response from the questionnaire is given below:

(3 participants responses each)

Group A: Which direction was the cinnamon falling?

-No idea

-Don’t know

-I don’t know

Group B: Which side was the Jockey model's face facing?

-Left

-Right

-Left

More than the accuracy of the answers, the ability to retrieve information from short term memory could be seen.

Coding of new information is possible only when attention is given to a particular stimulus.

Hence it could be seen that rousing ads (vibrant) grabbed more attention even under an interesting and attention-demanding context (comics).

V Recommendations for Further Action

The results from this study’s implications could be seen in varied places in marketing world.

• As an actionable insight, the product company could place vibrant moving ads in place of dull color posters or non-relatable Ad posters.
  

  • Eg: Instead of cinnamon shown in a brown background, it could have been placed in a mustard yellow background to accentuate the look of the cinnamon.

• In the case of online shopping apps, the promoted product Ads should be more vibrant in color and feel rather than using stock-like images.
  

  • Eg: Look at the second stimuli below, the yellow accentuates the poster leading the user to pay more attention even when the comic can be easily distractive.

Gaze plot

• However, It is crucial to balance the level of vibrancy in Ads, This in itself should not act as a distractor to the user from accessing main information.
  

  • Eg: In the cigarette Ad (rousing Ad- Marlboro), the gaze map shows that none of the user actually saw the cigarette image in the Ad. Rather focused only on the text of the Ad. The highlighted, vibrant text in itself acted a deterrent for the user to take in information.