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24: Attention

The author's concept of attention as the result of "a temporary stable dominant gestalt" that drives our decisions, in that it overpowers competing gestalts for long enough to carry us through an action - and depending on the action, it may remain stable and dominant for a very brief moment. The dominant gestalt, and the emotions it attaches to its subject, cause us to give attention to some things and to ignore others.

He mentions the speculations about the effects of video recording, which gives the subject the ability to watch a program and fast-forward through commercials. (EN: Curious that this notion is raised in terms of digital video recorders when the same had not been said of videocassette recorders, which were used in exactly the same way). His own experiments found the opposite to be true: in order to avoid advertisements, a person must give attention to advertising - at the very least to detect where it begins and where it ends. And while a fast-forwarded commercial is not viewed at the intended speed, it is viewed more attentively.

(EN: This seems a bit specious, so I looked into it and found a handful of studies that agree: where subjects fast-forward through ads, they had a greater recollection of the brands that were advertised and could make more associations of imagery of the ad to the brand than those who watched commercials at normal speed - and, in fact, the latter were more likely to remember bits of action and dialogue from commercials but were less likely to associate them to a given brand.

The Issue

Getting the attention of prospects is the most important issue facing marketers: if they don't notice your brand on the shelf, don't register the key selling points communicated by your advertising, they will not purchase.

There are many stimuli in the environment that compete for attention. As such, you are seldom having a one-on-one conversation with an attentive listener, but are one of many voices in a crowd, attempting to distract someone whose attention is focused on their daily business.

In each of these instances, the hope of the advertiser is that the subject will switch attention, if only for a moment, to the advertising message.

Some advertising practitioners disregard cognitive science, feeling that "learning" is not relevant to advertising. A person who seeks to learn is focused on the message, intently focused on the lecture or the textbook, which is quite different from the way advertising is consumed: a distraction that gets momentary attention.

There is also a debate over the focus of attention, whether people can give attention to more than one thing at a given time, or whether their attention shifts from one thing to another but is at any given moment focused on a single thing. Regardless of which camp you fall into, it's clear that advertising is given a low level of attention, whether it is experienced simultaneously or intermittently.

Back to learning: when we are intent on learning something, we focus attention toward it. A study environment is created (or sought) where there are minimal distractions. A student attempting to learn a subject will re-read a passage of text multiple times, take notes, and review their notes. This is quite different from entertainment media. While a person may "rewind" a DVR program to re-watch a segment or re-read a part of an article, it is rare.

It's also noted that people very seldom intentionally give attention to anything. Learning situations are rare; and while there are instances where we are intent on reading a specific article or watching a specific television program, it is more common for us to peruse a magazine or turn on the television out of boredom.

(EN: In digital medium, the behavior of "using" the internet and "surfing" it are distinctly different things -as is the behavior of using a mobile device for a purpose and merely turning to it in a boring or socially awkward situation.)

Particularly for advertising, respondents will very often indicate that they do not watch advertisements - which is to say that they generally do not open a newspaper, turn on a television, or launch a Web browser for the express purpose of receiving commercial messaging. They still experience advertising, and still notice it, but it is not their primary intent to give attention to it.

In regard to neuroscience, memory formation uses the same neurons and processes whether the subject is intent on receiving information (studying) or has inadvertently given their attention (seeing an advertisement).

Death Of The 30-Second Ad?

Given the advent of digital video recorders and the practice of fast-forwarding through ads, some companies are reconsidering whether television advertising remains a worthwhile investment. There are specific mentions of Heineken, Unilever, and Proctor & Gamble reducing the proportion of their budget they spend on television, and Advertising Age suggests that this may be a reason that actual ad-spend has fallen short of projections in recent years.

Naturally, the variance has led the more fretful types to predict the death of television advertising. This notion is based on two assumptions: first, that the majority of consumers will fast-forward through advertising; and second, that a user does not pay any attention at all to a fast-forwarded ad.

(EN: I'd say there's a bigger assumption in play: that the projections of ad-spend were reasonable. The specific details were that ad-spend was expected to increase by 6% but only increased by 3%. The obvious conclusion is that the projection was overly optimistic - and more to the point, ad-spend is not declining, just not increasing as much as the industry hoped.)

The author speaks of two experiments in which his firm was involved.

The first was a survey among 2,000 participants that asked questions about the recall and recollection of advertisements during a program they had seen. There was little difference in the degree of recall between DVR owners (who presumably recorded the program and fast-forwarded commercials) and those who do not own DVRs (who presumably watched programs at regular speed) - in fact, the DVR owners scored slightly better though the difference was not statistically significant.

The author theorizes that there is likely high recognition and recall of advertisements because a viewer who is fast-forwarding though ads is actually paying much more attention than the regular-speed viewer whose attention is placed elsewhere. To avoid over-shooting, the viewer must pay attention to the fast-forwarded adverts to know when the program he intends to watch has resumed.

A second experiment involved showing an audience commercials played at triple speed, then asking them to write down what commercials they had seen, whether they had seen them before, and whether they liked them. The recall rate was between 40% and 90% (which is very high for a memory task) and the "liking" scores were highly correlated with measurements from audiences who had seen them at normal speed.

Additionally, he notes that people in the audience were seen to laugh at humorous advertisements they had seen before - they were not laughing at the humor, but laughing because they remembered (associated) humor from their original experience of seeing the ad at normal speed.

This touches on the notion of recognition as "re" plus "cognition" - we do not merely recall the stimulus we previously experienced, but recall the thoughts and emotions we had regarding the experience itself. They "cognized" the advertisement the first time they saw it, and on seeing it again, they recalled their original cognition.

(EN: A totally non-scientific observation is that a person who has forgotten something can often be helped to remember it by mentioning details that aren't directly related to it. Where they were sitting, something they were tasting, a song that was playing at the time, all touch upon a memory of an event, and details about something they said will shake loose. In much the same way, the experiment demonstrates that a momentary image causes a subject to remember a humorous scene.)

The author notes that, while brain-scanning equipment was not used in this experiment, it is still very much a neuromarketing experiment. It does not measure electrical activity in the brain, but examines the functions of the brain nonetheless by examining perception, attention, memory, and emotion - and in a way that provides insights that marketers can put to practical use.

The Response Curve And Recognition

Another fundamental of advertising is frequency: it is commonly believed that people must be exposed to a commercial message repeatedly in order for it to sink in. Fewer exposures and the message will not be effective; more exposures and you have wasted budget.

The author's own research supports this: that response to an advertisement increases with repetition, but beyond a certain point there is a diminishing return.

The author believes the inflection point to represent the place where memory formation occurs, which may happen from one exposure or several. At the point of inflection, a memory has been formed. Repeated exposures do not form memories, but merely cause the subject to recall their memory - to recognize the message as something that has already been experienced and evaluated.

(EN: This strikes me as similar to learning. Various approaches are used to teach the student a principle - but once he's "got it," it is no longer necessary to continue teaching. Repetition does not add to his knowledge, but is more likely to annoy or bore the student.)

Aside of budgetary concerns, there is the notion that over-exposure to a commercial message will be detrimental to memory, but the author has found no empirical evidence of this happening. When people see an advertisement that they have seen multiple times before, they ignore it - they recognize it as something they have seen before and that does not require their attention.

(EN: This pertains solely to memory and the ability to recognize. The author does not seem to consider sentiment here, and I strongly suspect that a person who has seen the same commercial "too many times" has no problems remembering it, but begins to form negative emotions that will be associated to the brand. The counter-argument, perhaps equally valid, is that people like familiar things, such that repetition causes comfort rather than annoyance. I don't think I can sort this out in an editorial remark, but the authors statement could be construed to mean there is no harm done by repetition, which is not supported by the nature of the evidence presented here.)

Media Strategy Implications

The practical conclusion to which studies of fast-forwarded advertisements lead is that they are as effective as those that are viewed at normal speed, but provided that they have been seen in their entirety before.

As such, the author suggests launching new advertisements on channels or programs that are generally viewed in real time, such as news or sporting events. Once you have detected (via a tracking system) that viewers have cognized the advertisement (they have formed a memory of it), then it can be moved to cheaper channels that are fast-forwarded.

A "major benefit" of moving the ad to a channel where it will be viewed in FF mode is that the audience will give it greater attention and are in a more positive mood, than when it plays in real time.

Repeat Exposure

The effectiveness of repeated exposure to an advertising message is an important issue to advertising, as the number of spots is a significant factor of the cost of advertising.

Reference is made to a recent study (Sands) that found that brain activity spikes during the first 800 milliseconds of an advertisement, particularly in the frontal lobe. It is theorized that this represents the user deciding whether they have seen it before, and how much attention they will give to the commercial. (EN: Which is a bit confounding, given that the author earlier expressed that both memory and filtering take place nearer the amygdala rather than the frontal lobe.)

There is also the P300 or "P3" effect to be considered, which observes a similar spike in frontal-lobe activity when any unexpected or unfamiliar event occurs. This effect occurs in the parietal lobe, 300 to 600 milliseconds after an event occurs, the reason being that the brain spends about 300 ms processing a stimulus, via perception and memory, before the frontal lobe is called upon to make a decision regarding its significance.

Chapman and Bragdon further considered the P300 effect, using a combination of stimuli that had meaning (a flash of two numbers, the subject required to tell whether the first is greater, less, or equal) and stimuli that had no meaning (a flash of color, about which no question would be asked), and found that the initial reaction was similar, but there were significant differences in brain activity shortly afterward, which divides the P3 effect into two phases, P3a (perception and recognition) and P3b (evaluation).

This also gave rise to the concept of event-related potential (ERP), an evaluation made around 250-280 ms after perception whether the perceived stimulus merits any further attention - presumably because it has the potential to require reaction. Any new stimulus has potential; any stimulus that has required a reaction in the past has potential; but any stimulus that is both familiar and has required no action in the past is disregarded.

(EN: Designing user experiences comes to mind: the more frequently something appears in the course of a task, the less attention it will get - hence something repeated on every page of a flow is disregarded, even when it is significant. Or in game design, what is most engaging/exciting are new stimuli, items that do not appear often.)

Naturally, the P3b effect initially garnered the most interest. For marketing purposes, our desire is to elicit a desire to purchase, and when a stimulus is discarded as requiring no reaction, it has failed to trigger an evaluation that might result in an increased likelihood of purchasing (the desired reaction to the message).

To further refine, the more likely/probable an event is to occur, the less activity is evident in the P3b phase. Where a person performs regular activities that have occasional variances: the more frequently defects occur, the less response is elicited; the less frequently, the more.

(EN: this seems a bit oblique, but I think of the example of a quality inspector on a manufacturing line - the more defective products he sees, the less attention he pays, so he is likely to be more attentive, and more effective, if there are fewer defects overall.)

One theory (Krugman 1972) suggests that three exposures may be enough. There are a few basic questions that a person considers when viewing a commercial: what is this; what of it; and have I seen it before? The thesis is that, once a person realizes they have seen something in the past, the "process of disengagement" begins: it is recognized and dismissed as unimportant without any further evaluation. This explains the decline in response rates as the number of exposures increases.

The author seems to pick apart this theory a bit - fundamentally, it fails to consider the cumulative effect of advertisements: if 10% of viewers purchase the item, the second iteration considers only the 90% who failed to purchase the first time, which is a smaller group. Even if the ad gets the same response rate, the numbers will diminish as a result - for 1,000 audience members, an ad with a 10% response rate will get 100 sales, the, 90, then 81, etc. as a result of people who bought earlier being excluded from the audience. Simply stated, the ad is no less effective, but the population of non-buyers incrementally decreases.

Why Repeat Exposures To An Advertisement?

There remains some debate over the importance of repeated exposures to advertising: some maintain that once the customer has noticed the advertisement and knows the benefits of the brand, there is no need for further advertising: they know the proposed benefits, but do not value them enough to purchase the product, and the advertiser should move on to greener pastures. That is, reach new prospects rather than investing in repeating a sales proposal to those who have already rejected it.

Theory aside, it's fairly obvious that major brands value frequency: their own actions, and significant amounts of money, are used to generate a high level of frequency. What is the rationale for this?

The author previously considered forgetfulness - that people who have seen advertisements may not remember them in a situation where they are likely to purchase a product, so frequent repetition keeps the brand on there mind. However, the author is unaware of any research that supports this notion.

One theory considers the difference in recall (the customer remembers the brand in relation to a product) and recognition (the customer remembers the details of the brand when prompted, such as mentioning the name). Recognition of a brand or an advertisement is much lower than recall, but it is much more important because when the need arises, a marketer is unlikely to be nearby to remind the customer of their brand - it must come to mind on its own.

It also remains true that memories become stronger with repetition or intensity. The gestalt formed by a single encounter that had little emotion is far weaker than a gestalt formed by repeated encounters, high emotional intensity, or both.

As such, a brand with which a person has the most frequent contact will be the one that comes to mind when the consumer has need of a product. Where the user has hands-on experience with a given brand, it is the strongest (hence the tendency to repurchase rather than seek a different brand). Where the user has no experience with any brand, but has heard of several through advertising, the one that has been presented to the user most frequently in the recent past will gain top-of-mind awareness.

Can An Advertisement Have An Effect Without It Being Given Attention?

It's generally accepted that an advertisement must gain the prospect's attention in order for it to be effective - but this doesn't necessarily mean that an advertisement must command attention to merely "have an effect" on the viewer.

While the theory of subliminal advertising has not been supported by evidence, we do have evidence that a person senses everything in their environment, even if they do not focus their attention upon it.

A person walking though a park passes a trash bin - and though he may not have given it much recognition as he passed by, he is aware on some level that the object that he passed, even if it was only in the periphery of his vision, was a trash bin. If he walks the same path a second time, and the bin is missing, he will have the vague sense that something is missing, something is not quite right, and if he considers it, he will realize that there used to be a trash bin there, though he had never given the bin itself any attention.

As you go about your daily life, there are many things that you notice - you cannot help doing so - but your attention is not focused upon them. And everything that is perceived by your senses is received by the brain, though it may be filtered out or considered unimportant, they may in fact be unconsciously recorded in memory. The waste bin in the park is an element present in a familiar scene, that gets no attention until it is absent.

In much the same way, a person who is prompted to remember a scene can often recollect minor details, which seemed inconsequential. These are things he perceived, noticed, and recorded without giving them the focus of his attention. It is not subconscious, but unconscious - an involuntary mental function.

In much the same way, a person who is in a coffee shop having a conversation with friends may not give attention to the television set that is playing at the edge of his vision. He sees the television, in that he perceives it as well as the advertisement that is playing upon it. But yet, some memory of that advertisement is recorded.

Chances are that if he sees the same advertisement at a later time, when he is focused on watching television, he will recall having seen it before - his memory of it may be vague, but it is nonetheless a memory, and he may associate to the advertisement the emotional state he was experiencing as a result of the conversation he was having with his colleagues in the coffee shop.

As such, we cannot assert that the advertisement, when seen in the coffee shop, had been effective - but neither would it be correct to assert that it had no effect whatsoever. It was perceived and remembered, and emotions were attached to it.

The Advertising Effect Of This

The author lists some of the neuroscience observations of repetition in advertising:

Naturally, all of this relies on recollection: the advertisement had received some attention at one point in order to be associated to memories when it is seen again.

Attention and Emotion

The author reviews an ongoing argument between himself and another researcher, Robert Heath, about the relationship between attention and emotion. He does not agree with the conclusions Heath has drawn, but feels it's an interesting point that should not be entirely ignored.

Heath's study uses minute and rapid eye movements called "microsacccades" as indicators of attention, a premise which itself is not generally accepted. Those who support the theory believe that these movements have the biological purpose of keeping the eyes fixed on something - the tiny movement is the brain jerking the eye, like an errant dog on a leash, back toward an object that the mind wishes to maintain focus upon. Those who do not support the theory maintain that microsaccades do not occur often of consistently enough for them to be correlated to attention.

For those that do subscribe to the theory that microsacades indicate attentiveness, the study's findings suggest that television programming that is highly charged with emotion receives less attention by 20% than programming without emotive content. It was also found, using the same assumption, that people seem to pay greater attention to ads for brands they already recognize than to ads for brands they are unfamiliar with, regardless of the level of emotional content.

The conclusion is that "emotive creativity might facilitate communication, not by increasing attention, but by lowering attention, promoting open-mindedness and effectively encouraging the consumer to let their guard down."

The author remains unconvinced of this assertion, largely because the premise on which it is based is flawed. The correlation between eye movements, response, and recollection is statistically sound, but the assumption that eye movement is a reliable indication of attention remains debatable.

Which is to say that Heath's experiment indicates come correlation, but until further research is done to support the premise, or discover a more accurate indication of what microsaccades actually indicate, the interpretation of this phenomenon is questionable.

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