Attention and Comprehension

Getting Attention

 The first step in getting your ad noticed by the target segment

 Advertising clutter
 Noise clutter
 Memory is less when viewed/heard with competitive brand
advertising.
 Primacy and Recency Effects

Primacy
 Being the first ad, it registers in the mind.

Recency
 The last one is fresh in memory

Therefore such ad positions are priced at a premium.

 Zipping and Zapping

 Zipping is going ‘fast forward’

 Zapping is changing channels or channel surfing
 How to minimise Zipping and Zapping?

Zipping
 To get the commercial at the beginning of the pod
 Visual elements that would be visible in the main body of
the program or even when doing FF.

Zapping
 Improving ‘likability’ of the ad
 Making it interesting and involving
What ads attracts attention?
Information of Practical value

The behavioural tendency to process information

depends on:
 Need for information
 Expectancy (Probability) that processing a particular
ad will lead to relevant information exposure
 Measure of the value of that particular ad as a source
of relevant information
Long copy Vs short copy
Information that supports
 Information that interests

 People tend to notice information that is interesting to them

– Russel Haley

 This where customer self-selection works when such ads are

put in mass media.
 Information that stimulates

 Variety theory by Salvadore Maddi

This states that novelty, unexpectedness, change and complexity

are pursued because they are inherently satisfying.

 Adaptation level theory by H. Helson

People learn to associate stimuli with a reference point or

adaptation level. Marked deviation from it shall attract attention.
 Weber’s Law

The degree to which a stimulus would be regarded

as different will depend not on the absolute stimulus
change but on the% change from some point of reference.

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 Attention vs Recall

Recall of an ad is a necessary but not sufficient condition for

persuasion.
 Ad repetition, higher frequency and higher SOV
 Using distinctive creative material in the ad
 Merchandising using clues to recall ad at the store
 Attention vs Comprehension

 While getting attention is important it should not detract

the viewer from the message

 The execution, models, props, etc. must not take

precedence over the brand.

 Persuasion takes place when good comprehension takes

place. Processing would take central or peripheral routes
of processing depending on the comprehension
 Interpretation vs Comprehension

 Objective comprehension
What is the take-out of the brand? – copy test scales

 Subjective comprehension

Explicit – the ad story

Implicit – using the ad information along with knowledge and experience
already stored in memory

The deeper the level of subjective comprehension, the more effective the
ad will be in credibility, likeability, persuasiveness and recall – David Mick
 What is Perception?

It is the process where an individual

receives stimuli through the various
senses and interprets them
 The Perception Process
Attention Interpretation

Stimulus Cognition

Stimulus Conditions Audience Conditions

Intensity Attitudes
Size Values
Message Interests
Novelty Confidence
Position
Social Context
Context
Cognitive Style
Perceptual organization
Brand Attitudes
 % of total market Attitude Segments

3 5 Marketing efforts

2 6
Competitive efforts1 7

-ve Attitude +ve

 Ad Attitudes

 Attitude towards an ad (liking) provided an impact on brand

attitudes over and above the ability of the ad to
communicate attribute information
– Andrew Mitchell, Jerry Olsen and Terence Shrimp

 Ad disliking has a greater effect than ad liking. The effect of

ad liking are more important for mood ads than for hard-sell
ads
– McCollum and Spielman
 What makes an ad more likeable?
 Credibility
 Positive, likeable feelings
 Using humour
 Using relevant
executional devices
 Using relevant, likeable
celebrities
 Using endorsers relevant
to target market
 For a brand already liked
 Contains useful information
 Interesting and reasonably
complex
 Containing information that
is itself liked (SP)
 Placed in a media
environment that is itself
liked