Make ‘em sweat
NBC recently tested viewer recall of TV ads when played in fast-forward mode—DVR-style. They biometrically tracked eye movements, heart rate and sweat (further proof that advertising can be a nasty business) to find out what factors captured viewers’ attention.
I was surprised to learn that test subjects actually retained information from certain spots, even when viewed at up six times normal speed. Specifics of the study suggested that ad producers may want to pay more attention to:
- keeping the brand logo in the middle of the screen
- limiting the number of scene changes
- telling a visual story that stands alone without audio
- the use of familiar characters
- frequency of media placement
One moral of the story is that the good ol’ fashioned boob tube is neither entirely dead nor entirely useless as an advertising medium, even with DVR technology.
The Wall Street Journal’s Stephanie Kang wrote an excellent article that tells more of the story. You can find it here: http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB120398730105292237.html?mod=djm_HAWSJSB_Welcome
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To fly, we have to have resistance.
–Maya Lin
March 14, 2008 at 5:15 pm
Dude,
Thanks for entering this arena of visual attraction, retention, and the value of such studies.
Naturally, I reject everything and detest all considerations by everyone. If you know me (personally as an ad creative from way back, or as an assistant professor of advertising), you know that I really think most advertising is poorly considered, lacking in creativity, and the rationale we use to justify most of it is pure meth – a lot of stupidity that quickly kills you (and your budget).
But I believe really smart advertising can and does exist, rarely. And I appreciate what Wynn’s done in opening this arena of discussion.
Actually, this study in fast-forward viewing is really some fertile ground for discussion.
I would like to point first to the idea of the center of the ad as being the primary location for viewing. Quite intuitive, and actually, if you consider how we approach a written page and Web page, you can find some prior support for this notion.
Take a look at The World’s Greatest Manual on Web Design (my title for it, and seriously given since it’s so damned well considered and theoretically based, particularly the page http://webstyleguide.com/page/hierarchy.html), and you’ll find some very interesting information about how we “enter” a page.
We treat a new page as tabula rasa, and seek out something that will signal where we should go. We tend to go to graphics (which describes the entirety of the screen for most TV spots), and it would seem natural that we would go to the center of a fully graphic page/screen since there are no contrasting values between the graphics in most TV spots, and explore outward from there. However, in the fast-forward mode, we never really have a chance to explore outward on the screen, so we remain fixed on the center.
Excuse me. Did I just agree with someone’s research findings? I hate myself.
[By the way ... I was once told that Akira Kurosawa plotted every opening scene in his epic movie, Ran, so that it would stand as a work of art in itself. If you look at the film, you'll see this appears to be exactly what happened. In this, you have a point at which you enter the scene - it could be anywhere, but you are always visually directed to that point - and a distinct eye-tracking motion as you work your way through the scene, as you would with any piece of fine art, or well-designed print ad. We don't see that kind of understanding in the design of TV spots, for some reason.]
But now, let’s look at the issue of What It All Means.
This is a research project that is concerned only with retention (recall, unaided or aided, we’re not sure). We really need to determine whether recall means anything. One of the most striking things I’ve run into in all my years practicing and teaching advertising was the comment by one author in a text I was forced to use one year. This person noted that we use recall as one of the parameters of determining an ad’s “effectiveness,” and also noted that no one could say for sure that recall was actually a factor in effectiveness.
First of all, what is the meaning of “effective?”
Secondly, simply because one can recall an ad, doesn’t mean it has had a positive influence in brand preference. Certainly, there is the facile argument that you can’t choose a product if can’t you remember the ad – but that is so disingenuous in its suggestion that the rest of the world (friends’ recommendations, past experience, competing ads we may remember, etc.) has no greater profound effect on our product choice.
Coming back to that text book for a second – I do not personally like the author, but I must say that I admire her comment that though these issues such as recall cannot be positively claimed as influential, we use them because they’re really all we have available to us to measure. We have no real, unshakable causal relationship, just a parameter we can measure. So we measure it.
While I may very well lock onto the center of the screen while fast-forwarding, and I may remember a logo placed dead-center and can recall it, it really does not mean, in any way, that there has been a positive brand experience.
Personally, I would like to see TV continue to receive a lot of dollars in ad placement. I like watching good, well-produced shows. As we move to the Web, those dollars now available for production will go away, and we’ll begin to see cheap, badly produced work.
So, please – let’s all continue to delude ourselves into believing TV advertising works. At least we’ll continue to get some good programming.
greg stene
March 17, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Greg,
Thanks for all the unshy and well considered insights. I was hoping this would get your attention.
–W