Attention and Comprehension

What is perception?
It is the process where an individual
receives stimuli through the various
senses and interprets them
The Perception Process
Stimulus Cognition
Active Search
Passive search
Passive Attention
Simplify
Distort
Organize
Attention
Interpretation
Stimulus Conditions
Intensity
Size
Message
Novelty
Position
Context


Audience Conditions

Attitudes
Values
Interests
Confidence
Social Context
Cognitive Style
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.

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
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.

What ads attracts attention?
Product information that would help
purchase decision
Those that expose themselves to
information that support these opinions
and avoid discrepant information
Those that desire to get exposed to
information that stimulates
Stimuli which is interesting

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 as a
source of relevant information
Long copy Vs short copy
Readership drops sharply after 50 words but
between 50 and 500 words there is hardly any
difference.
The more you tell the more you sell
If you dont have anything to say, then sing it.
Depends on whether it is under active search or
for future reference
Infomercials
Advertorials

Information that supports
Dissonance theory Cognitive dissonance is
discomforting and people will try to reduce it.
One mechanism is through selective exposure
People tend to have a psychological preference
for supportive information and avoid discrepant
information. This is called selective exposure
Ad awareness seems to be higher for those who
already have higher brand attitudes Rajeev Batra
and Wilried Vanhonacker
Involuntary exposure to non-supportive
information shall increase selective exposure to
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.
Webers 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.
I
I
K
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
credibility, likeability, persuasive and recall
David Mick
Perceptual organization
People tend to see objects as a whole
than see individually its parts. S. E. Asch
First impressions are important.
Closure
Assimilation Contrast
Miscomprehension

Brand Attitudes
Cognitive (awareness, comprehension,
knowledge)
Affective (evaluation, liking, preference)
Conative (purchase, trial)
Attitudes decay over time. Therefore +ve
attitudes need to be nurtured and sustained.
Attitudes can be examined at three levels
Physical
Pseudo-physical
Benefits physical and psychological
Attitude Segments
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Attitude
-ve +ve
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Marketing efforts
Competitive efforts
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
Uses humour
Uses relevant executional
devices
Uses relevant, likeable
celebrities
Uses endorsers relevant
to target market
For a brand already liked
Contains useful
information
Interesting and
reasonably complex
Contains information that
is itself liked (SP)
Placed in a media
environment that is itself
liked