Attraction is More Important Than Attention or Emotion

This body of work plus relevant studies in psychology and neuroscience have already established that attention is not the only amp8220qualityamp8221 determinant of outcome effects such as incremental sales increases increases in positive attitudes toward specific brands and for tunein advertisers increases in viewing of a program seriesThe most frequently mentioned other amp8220qualityamp8221 dimension of an ad impression critical to achieving such results is emotion And specifically positive emotion Because negative emotion could have exactly the opposite outcome effectsHowever the word amp8220emotionamp8221 in this context is an incomplete descriptor Even the notion of amp8220positive emotionamp8221 is incomplete Why is this soBecause an ad may cause you to feel positive emotion yet it might have no impact on how you feel about the advertised brand and therefore no effect on your buying behavior related to that brand Funny ads may put you in a great mood and you might even be grateful to a brand for putting them on the air and yet this might not change your buying behaviorSo the simplistic amp8220attention plus emotionamp8221 mantra is not explicit enough to induce sufficient understanding to cause practitioners to create and properly distribute ads that get the real job done Hence this article which is aimed at fully closing the gapAn ad works especially in terms of bringing in customers that are new to the brand when the specific positive emotion that is felt during the viewing of the ad is attraction Not all positive emotions move the needle on attraction although most cases of attraction do involve some degree of positive emotion Nevertheless attraction is core to the success of an ad especially for brand growth new to brand acquisition and positive emotion is more of a secondary effectThe degree of emotion and the degree of attraction need not hit a certain high level before having behavioral impact especially in low involvement product categories For example for a new brand of chewing gum among heavy users of the category the degree of attraction to a new brand might be extremely slight but enough to impel trial when activated by seeing the new brand on the checkout shelf Among high involvement productservice categories the degree of attraction might need to be greaterHow do we measure attraction then The famed neuroscientist Dr Richy Davidson with whom Iamp8217ve had the honor of working discovered that the ratio of activity in the right vs left frontal cortex indicates attractionrepulsion attraction when the activity is stronger in the left frontal and repulsion when it is stronger in the right frontal I had the exciting experience of working with Richy and Dan Goleman at the time this idea was just occurring to RichyEEG also SST the invention of Dr Richard Silberstein which is a more precise and stable method than EEG is the main tool for measuring attraction today Back in the early days Richy Dan and I used a battery including EEG EMG electromyograph measuring the frontalis and tensor muscles which is able to discern invisibly small smiles or frowns that facial coding cannot see EKG and a secondbysecond voluntary response analogous to todayamp8217s dial or slider for subjects to selfreport their subjective degree of positivitynegativity toward the stimulus experienceThe seat of the emotions in the brain is the limbic system which is at the core of the brain overwrapped by the cortex Yet attractionrepulsion can be measured at the frontal cortex by Richyamp8217s ratio And that is the way neuroscientists are doing it today Which is a very good thing because it is a pivotal measure for advertising more to the point than emotion per seIn retrospect it may seem obvious that we need to be attracted to something before we go out and buy it So much in life is obvious once you know it but not beforeSo if we want to have a simplistic mantra let it be amp8220attention and attractionamp8221 rather than amp8220attention and emotionamp8221What about relevancy People have conscious or nonconscious attractions called wants desires need states motivations goals predispositions These leanings are what determine which stimuli grab our attention Where the individual audience member is consciously aware of what has happened he or she instantly understands why this stimulus has caught their attention In the bulk of cases however the attention we pay to things is fleeting and unimportant to us and so we donamp8217t bother thinking about why our eyes jerked to the TV screen just thenamp8220Myamp8221 company RMT Research Measurement Technologies uses the word amp8220resonanceamp8221 a form of relevancy to label two types of situations which are pragmatic to the aim of increasing advertising effectivenessThe ad resonates with the person seeinghearing itThe ad resonates with the context it is inFive different independent studies Nielsen NCS Neustar 605 Simmons and ARF Cognition Council have established that sales and branding effects both increase typically 30 or more when either or both of these two types of resonance is achieved This means that resonance must have increased either attention or attraction or bothHow can ads be made more likely to cause attraction to the brandMake sure the brand is clearly identified throughout the ad using audio and video if both available The most vestigial of all advertising practices is surprising the audience with the identity of the brand only at the end of the ad Dr Richard Silberstein further warned against branding coming right after closure has been achieved on the storyline of the ad because of cognitive latency the brainamp8217s way of recharging always following on the heels of closureThe message of the ad needs to focus on conveying how buying and using the brand will pay off motivations the audience member already has Do they want statusprestige Love A better world Everyone the younger generations especially would like the world to be a better place so an ad which shows how the brand is actually doing something sensible in that direction should create attraction Or the brand may actually have a benefit that prospects care about because of their desire to themselves be more attractive respected successful fit healthy safe etc and of course that is exactly what the ad should dramatize in order to create attractionLeverage resonance to addressably target people whose motivations align with your ad and to place the ad in contexts that resonate with the adamp8217s motivational payloadLeverage attention methods such as Amplified Intelligence to maximize the attention your ad getsUtilize area probability samples plus big data with deterministic purchaser targeting in order to minimize suboptimization due to biases in base data Donamp8217t be fooled by sexage oversimplification it has very weak targeting value except for prescription drugs and a small number of other exceptionsPosted at MediaVillage through the Thought Leadership selfpublishing platformClick the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillageorgMyersBizNet

APPLY FOR JOBS | SUBMIT YOUR RESUME | REGISTER FOR FREE MEDIAVILLAGE CONTENT

Attraction is More Important Than Attention or Emotion

Author

Publish date

Channel

Archived in

Bill Harvey

APPLY FOR JOBS | SUBMIT YOUR RESUME | REGISTER FOR FREE MEDIAVILLAGE CONTENT

Attraction is More Important Than Attention or Emotion

Enjoying This Commentary? There's More to Love

Bill Harvey

Cookies