Making brand visible: advertising elements influencing visual attention to the brand

Abstract

Advertising is a trillion dollar industry, which reveals the importance for each of the company investing in advertising to create effective advertising campaigns in order to make investments profitable. Nevertheless, in todays’ intensifying competition creating effective advertising campaigns becomes more and more of a challenge. Even if some elements of advertising are attention-grabbing, this does not guarantee that the brand in the advertisement will be noticed, which in turn leads to reduced advertisin g effectiveness. Such phenomenon is especially relevant to outdoor advertising. The scientific problem solved by this research is defined by a question: what criteria of outdoor advertising elements influence visual attention to the brand? This study aims to contribute to the advertising theory by determining the specific criteria of advertising elements that influence consumers’ visual attention to the brand presented in the outdoor advertisements. To reach the aim of the study, the eye tracking experiment using Tobii Eye Tracking Glasses is provided with the created sample advertisements. Sample advertisements are composed based on the theoretically determined elements of advertising that can influence consumers’ visual attention to the brand and on the content analysis of real outdoor advertisements as well as advertising experts’ interview. The analysis of the research results revealed that in order to enhance the probability that brand presented in the outdoor advertisement will grab attention, it should be positioned in the left side of the advertisement and the advertisement should contain headline twice as big as body text. Moreover, advertisement should be with dominating textual elements and contain large number of elements. By enhancing the probability that brand presented in the outdoor advertisement will grab attention, the probability of effective advertising increases as well.