Which Ads Get The Eyeballs?

John Battelle's Searchblog notes an interesting Nielson/Norman eye tracking study on the effectiveness of various online ad formats. According to the study, website visitors tend to tune out - or pay only peripheral attention to - disruptive graphical or animated advertising that runs counter to the overall design context. The most attention-grabbing ads tend to feature large, clear text and are embedded in the information context and design style of the page. Other cues, such as words like "free" or tend to focus attention. 

I couldn't find the actual study, but these results seem to run counter to a number of earlier studies showing that "rich media" advertising is twice - sometimes three times - as likely to generated click-throughs than their static, text-based counterparts. Findings that show superior performance of rich media advertising fall in line with some pretty basic psych research that shows visual communications that run counter to expectations tend to motivate attentional (cognitive) resources, improve recall, and are more likely to result in behavioral engagement.

If the Nielson/Norman study holds up, this raises a more provocative question.  Are consumers - website visitors - becoming conditioned to ignore advertising that falls outside of goal-oriented online information gathering? But even this question would need to be qualified by the nature of the online experience (official, branded content vs. CGM), motivation of the website audience (research vs. entertainment), and the ad format (Flash motion design, streaming video/audio, etc.). In any case, this study is interesting and signals the need for additional research that focuses on usability, motivation, information processing and subsequent behavior. 

Tags: marketing advertising