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For millions of TV watchers, the commercial break is an annoyance of the past, thanks to the fast-forward button on their digital video recorders. Consequently, advertisers are turning to the web, where popular sites such as YouTube and Hulu force us to watch a brief commercial before playing the video we really want to see. But assuming a captive audience on these video sites may not make online marketers more effective at reaching consumers. Harvard Business School Assistant Professor Thales S. Teixeira notes that it's just as easy for viewers to tune out the 15- or 30-second ads preceding online videos by simply turning away, opening another browser window, or chatting with someone. "It's not at all hard to avoid an ad online even if you can't technically skip it," he says.
"It's not at all hard to avoid an ad online even if you can't technically skip it"
opening surprise long enough to provide maximum impact. That's no easy feat. The data indicated that it's hard to evoke a feeling of surprise for more than just a second, even for companies known for their marketing genius.
"The findings showed that advertisers should use a quick element of surprise at the beginning of an ad, followed by a longer period of joy, in order to get the most 'attention' bang for the buck"
The experiment showed that Budweiser was the most successful of the advertisers, with many participants exhibiting more than a second of surprise while viewing a Bud Light ad. In the commercial, office workers have to put a quarter in a communal "swear jar" every time they utter an obscenity. Rather than curb their cursing, they start swearing a blue streak after learning the pooled money will go toward a case of Bud Light. Thus the ad features a series of bleeped-out curse words. It's surprising at first, and then it's just funnyevoking small moments of giggly joy, culminating in the big moment when everyone is rewarded with a beer bash. Teixeira notes that Budweiser has garnered
similar surprise-inducing success by featuring barely censored nudity in a recent web-only commercial. "No matter what you're doing, you'll stop when you hear profanity, even bleeped-out profanityor when you see almost-naked people running around an office," he says. "These are just a few among many ways to garner attention quickly in the first few seconds of an ad." After getting the surprise element right, the ads must deliver on joy. The researchers found that ads retained attention better if they delivered several snippets of joy in succession than if they delivered a sustained period of joy. "It's like feeding them little bits of chocolate, one at a time, as opposed to handing them a whole chocolate bar," Teixeira says. "People adapt to almost anything, and adaptation is a constant in human nature, even when it comes to something good. So you want to alternate [the emotion] to really get them hooked."
rather than simply be entertained for 30 seconds?" In collaboration with colleagues at MIT, Teixeira is conducting experiments in which participants view online ads in their own homes, monitoring them with webcams. ("With their permission, of course," he says.) The idea is to gauge how consumers react to advertisements in a natural setting. "There are two competing hypotheses," he says. "One is simply that if you get people's attention, you're likely to have some opportunity to persuade. The other hypothesis is that through emotions, people reduce their guards against persuasion. The advertiser can work to put people in a better mood, which makes them more open to suggestion--and that could lead to an increase in persuasion."
Next steps
Of course, capturing attention is only part of the advertising battle. Converting attention to sales matters, too. Teixeira now is looking to discover the factors that make the former lead to the latter. "Attention is the biggest bottleneck, and we need to get through it," he says. "But after you've secured attention through good ads, the next questions are: How can I persuade? How can I communicate? How can I get people to change their evaluations of brands and products