Tag Archives: Advertising

The Emperor’s New Sneakers

Posted on by
Reply
Share

EyeTrackShop claim to be able to eye track a home based panel of participants using standard low resolution webcams. It’s a big claim that could revolutionise market research.
We were interested to find out if EyeTrackShop really works so we replicated an EyeTrackShop study with two fundamental differences:

  • We used specialist eye tracking equipment costing over $20,000 each, as used by thousands of academics so we know the eye tracking results are accurate.
  • We recruited participants using an in-street intercept rather than a self-selected online panel. Continue reading →

Is Market Research Precisely Wrong?

Posted on by
Reply
Share

There is a fundamental problem with most market research. David Ogilvy, the ‘Father of Advertising’, recognised it:

 

“People don’t do what they say, don’t say what they think, and don’t think how they feel.”

Traditional methods of market research focus on what can be gleaned from the conscious mind largely because until recently the tools to investigate the subconscious mind were not readily available.

THiNK Eyetracking has recently completed a comparison study of an award wining national advertising campaign that clearly shows the difference in conscious and unconscious responses to advertising. Continue reading →

8% More Bang For Your Media Spend in 3 Days

Posted on by
5
Share

We love this advert by Saatchi & Saatchi for Visa called Football Evolution:

The concept behind Football Evolution is itself an evolution of an earlier ad by Saatchi & Saatchi called Running Man:

When we tested Football Evolution as part of our weekly omnibus we found that viewers were engaged and enjoyed the ad but we were surprised to find it didn’t do as well as Running Man for some key metrics including recall and recognition and message delivery. We reviewed the emotional response and the eye tracking data and the disconnect quickly became apparent:

In the final scenes of Running Man the mystery of why the actor is naked is resolved and both women and men experience enjoyment, then the actors fade into the background and are replaced by the Visa card image and tag line “Life FLOWS better with Visa”. In Running Man the emotional high point is strongly linked with the branding moment and we know that emotion and memory are strongly linked. Continue reading →

Brand Building Takes Time AND Talent

Posted on by
1
Share

The lead story in this week’s Campaign about Pfizer looking for a retained European agency a for a well known pharmaceutical product reminded us of the award winning advert for Vitta Farma:

The Original Vitta Farma Ad

The Original Vitta Farma Ad

So we tested the advert in our omnibus in the context of Men’s Health magazine with a sample of thirty men and found that the advert elicited subconscious emotional responses of surprise with confusion, mild shock and in some cases disgust. These emotions were not resolved in the majority of readers because they did not know what the brand Vitta Farma does and they didn’t read the white out of pink text ‘Medicine for erectile dysfunction with special discount.’ As can be seen by the eye tracking heat map. Continue reading →

The (Long Forgotten?) Art of Long Copy

Posted on by
5
Share

Some months ago I was discussing the demise of long copy advertisements on a train journey with Rory Sutherland: I asked him if thought the amount of time we spend online had shortened our attention spans and if this had led to the demise of long copy ads?

“Oh no my dear boy!”  Boomed the reply. “The decline began long before that, you see the problem stems from when the industry started to place more emphasis on art and less on the copy, this happened at least ten years before the internet came into its own.”

I was encouraged by Rory’s response and wanted to test if people would still engage with long copy adverts. As good fortune would have it I found a I copy of Good Housekeeping from the late 90’s whilst on holiday in France. Whilst flicking through it I found an interesting long copy ad from BT. I ‘borrowed’ the magazine and included the BT advert as part of a ThinkPrint Advertising Effectiveness omnibus study. Continue reading →