Attention Principles in Advertising - Essay Example

Principles of visual search and attention Introduction Visual search refers to the use of one’s sense of perception to carefully look through the visible environment for a certain targeted feature or object among many other objects or features, for example, locating a particular model of a mobile phone on a display shelf. It involves the engagement of an individual’s sense of mental and visual perception to locate an item even without moving the eyes (Trick & Enns, 1998). On the other hand selective attention refers to an individual’s ability to remain focused on a particular object even when faced with many other distracting objects while advertising is an art of attracting the attention of a targeted market in order to persuade them to purchase a certain item or service (Wesley & McEntarffer, 2010). This paper will look at how advertisers use principles of visual search and attention to increase the chances that people notice their advertisement messages. Attention principles in Advertising According to Dukas (2002), attention is a cognitive process whereby one factor in the environment receives selective concentration while other factors are ignored. A good example of attention may involve carefully listening to what someone is saying in a room full of people while ignoring the conversation s of other people within the room (Dukas 2002). Advertising principles are mainly based on the psychological processes of attention, cognitive psychology and perception so as to draw consumers to the use of certain brands or products. In order to capture the interests of the viewers advertisers’ first goal is to focus on capturing the attention of consumers. Some of the ways that advertisers use to capture the attention of consumers is by showing strong visuals, bright colors and movements within the visual scenes. This approach is mainly based on the principal of attention control through orienting stimuli. For commercials, most advertisers prefer to use attractive models in trendy clothes in order to capture the attention of viewers. Soon as the attention of the viewer is drawn using these orienting stimuli, the advertisers then focuses on retaining the attention of the consumer (Roy, 2009). Visual imagery in advertising The art of advertising requires one to study the behaviour and perception of people in order to apply the proper principles that will draw the attention of the intended user on a long term. Therefore for one to win the attention of the targeted audience the message must be presented in a manner that it captures the logical and emotional meanings of the targeted recipient (Zaltaman 1995; Rossiter 1982). It must establish a deeper meaning and interest in the mind of the recipient. In order to achieve this, advertisers use the principles of visual research and attention to captivate the minds of their targeted audience and enhance the visual imagery of the targeted individuals. Visual imagery is a mental activity that enables an individual to visualize a concept or idea. It triggers the release and processing of information in the working memory (Woodman et al 2001). With visual imagery an individual can be stimulated into responding to a certain event, object or feature without the actual object, event or feature being present at the time (Burns et al 1993). This is the real potential with visual imagery. It triggers the five physical senses that is sight, hear, taste, touch and smell. As a result advertisers use visual imagery to stimulate and attract the attention of consumers. It has the potential to bring into remembrance information that has been kept in the long term memory and present it into the working memory. In addition, images that are inbuilt or stored in the brain are more attached and relevant to an individual as they are being generated from the mental processes of the individual and are not as a result of an external factor. This means that the information is already stored in the long term memory of the individual and can therefore be easily brought into the working memory by stimulation, for example, rerunning an advertisement. However, excessive repetition of the advertisement may reduce the attention of the recipient by a considerable degree (Peiter & Wedel 1999). Visual imagery has the capacity to generate or stimulate several senses at the same time and this provides an opportunity for the brain to process the information in more ways as more senses are involved. This improves the mental process thus providing a way in which advertisement can be effective by staying in the mind of the viewer even after the mental processing. Because images last longer in the mind of an individual it is safe to argue that such an approach to advertising will produce better results as the processing of the information is being drawn from the individual’s long term memory as compared to an approach that only triggers a limited response and engagement of the brain (Burns et al 1993). A research conducted by Burn et al (1993) has shown that visual imagery is better achieved by an individual by using concrete wording in a print advertisement rather than abstract wording. In addition, it produces a positive attraction, attitude and intention in the mind of the reader. It is also worth noting that the vividness dimension played a vital role by being the link between the positive perception generated in the minds of the consumers and the use of concrete wording. The consumers who found the advertisements being realistic and believable also showed a greater connection to visual imagery. From the research it was also found out that structuring instructions in a plain manner with the aim of requesting the individuals to use their imagination did not bring positive results as the instructions were generally ignored. This is mainly due to the fact the recipient of the information may see this as an attempt by the advertiser to cause manipulation and therefore generating a negative feedback. Another reason can be the fact that the individual simply chose to ignore them. The best approach to deal with this situation for a case which the individual did not view this action negatively was to provide these instructions in a separate copy from the advertisement. Another approach would be to include several reminders in the advertisement copy. It is also important to note that in this study bright factors produced best results as compared to the link to visual imagery. However, performing certain actions which stimulate the individual to remember and recollect such as giving rewards were important in cases where links dimension played a vital role (Burns et al 1993). Classical conditioning/Affective response Approach Another approach to visual imagery in advertising is the use of pictures to present a straight forward message of the product to the viewer. This approach is called the classical conditioning/affective response (Scott 1994; Sperling & Melcher 1978). While using this approach, it is assumed that the image is representing a particular product and it is therefore an important feature. It is based on the notion that research has shown that consumers go for the illustrative features on the advertisement that tend to point at the tangible features that illustrate the goals of the advertiser’s. Here the advertisement makes use of the real images of the product without making any distortions of illusions and style. This approach emphasises that the consumer does not need to make any interpretations as the product has been presented as it is (Scott 1994). The disadvantage of this approach is the fact that it can only be used in cases where the consumers do not need to employ a cognitive mental judgment or where there is no cultural influence in the interpretation process. For example such an approach would not work well in an area like Philippines were the use a person of Caucasian origin will easily lead to the succession of an advertising campaign. Another disadvantage for this approach is that it does not provide evidence for the difference arising between the use of the pictures of the real product and the use of visual illusion and stylization (Scott 1994). However, this approach is known to work well in cases where the advertiser is running an initial test for experimental design (Scott 1994). This approach is generally developed from the feature integration theory which was developed by Anne Treisman which argues that many feature searches are mainly parallel searches and that all other things need serial search. Features searches basically are those searches where the object of focus is differentiated from the other objects in the scene by basic features such as size, colour and so on. By the use of pictures with realistic representation one is able to drawn out the target object in the advertisement. Information Processing Approach The other approach in which the consumer mental process will be highly engaged in order to interpret the advertisement due to use of symbolic visualization is called information processing. Using this approach the message being showed by the advertiser is set within the image. By looking at the image the consumer is compelled to start analysing it and try to think about the information that is being conveyed by the advertiser. The message is not showed plainly by the image but is hidden and therefore the consumer has to be mentally involved in digging out the information. By doing this, the consumer is involved in mental reasoning and this is helpful to the advertiser as such mental activity can facilitate the information being stored in the long term memory. This mental engagement can be undertaken over a period of time as the advertisement is shown repetitively without the consumer being bored or uninterested. This provides a positive response to the advertisement as aimed at by the advertiser. In this approach there is increasingly high use of figurative speech that is a trope. The purpose for this is to stimulate the consumer to analyse a familiar aspect from an unanticipated point of view. This approach is known to work well in cases where the consumers have become bored, sceptical or are resistance to advertisements (Scott 1994). This approach is important because it recognizes the importance of an image to give significance and as a result it can be used to stimulate persuasion at different levels. However there is a limitation in the taking images as a form of mental comparison rather than being a symbolic form (Scott 1994). Another limitation for this approach is that it cannot work in a scenario where consumers prefer to view the realistic aspect of the product being advertised. It must be noted that not all consumers response to advertisements in a similar way. There are those who would prefer to have the information presented to them plainly rather than being manipulated in the advertisement. Such a class of consumers will not give a positive feedback to the advertisement. Therefore the advertiser has to be first aware of the perceptions and level of mental engagement of the intended market because without such information his effort may be useless. Elderly people are a good example of consumers in this group (Greenwood et al 1997). The information processing approach is developed from the rhetorical theory which is basically an interpretive theory where a message is framed in such a manner that the sender tries to influence the perception of the intended audience. A combined Approach of Feature Integration and Rhetorical Theories Another approach is to skilfully combine the two theories (that is feature integration and rhetorical theories) together in a manner that will strike a balance. In such an approach all the consumers at different levels are catered for. This approach has the benefit of reaching a larger market segment as compared to the first two approaches. The advertiser in this case will aim at designing an advertisement that will generate both a standard response as well as utilizing stylistic devices. The analysis of the advertisement requires an ordered and informed approach in drawing out the conclusion from the available evidence. In addition the response from this kind of advertisement depends on manipulating symbols within the context of the information presented in the advertisement. Limitations The disadvantage in this approach is the fact that blending may reduce the mental engagement of the second group of consumers and therefore boredom and lack of interest can be experienced sooner than later. Such an approach may also be seen to be less artistic and therefore not provide the commanding response anticipated by the advertiser. The use of images may not elicit the level of excitement as anticipated by the advertiser as the mental engagement is minimal (Scott 1994). Conclusion In conclusion, successful advertisements are those that can draw the attention of the targeted recipient and retain the memory of this experience in the long term. Research has shown that the use of visual imagery in advertising plays a significant role in achieving the goal. By employing the techniques of visual research it has been seen that an advertisement can be designed to capture the logical and emotional meanings and establish a deeper meaning and interest in the mind of the intended recipient. Therefore designing advertisements with the aim of stimulating visual imagery in the mind of the targeted recipient will yield positive results in capturing the attention of the recipient. There are also other approaches that can be used to draw the attention of the targeted recipients into the message in the advertisements. These are namely classical conditioning/affective response and information processing approaches. Each of these approaches has its unique target market depending on the level of mental engagement of the recipient required. Therefore the advertiser should be fully aware of the behavioural characteristics of his intended audience before deciding which approach to use (Zaltman 1995). References Burns, C. Biswas.A & Babin, A. (1993). The operation of visual imagery as a mediator of advertising effects. Journal of advertising, 22, 71-85. Dukas, R. (2002). Behavioural and Ecological Consequences of Limited Attention. Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences 357 (1427): 1539–1547. Greenwood, M., Parasuraman.R. & Alexander, A. (1997). Controlling the focus of spatial attention during visual search: effects of advanced aging and Alzheimer disease. Neuropsychology, 11 (1), 3-12. Peiters.R, Rosbergen.E & Wedel.M. (1999). Visual attention to repeated print advertising: a test of scanpath theory. Journal of marketing research, 36 (4), 424-438. Rossiter, R. (1982). Visual Imagery: Applications of advertising. Advances in consumer research, 9, 101-106. Roy, S.(2009). The psychology of advertising. 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