Understanding the relationship between attention and brand recall
Up until now, we have been talking about attention as a cost. But this is only half the story. To understand the full picture, we have to understand the impact of attention on the desired outcome of the advertising. Only then can we assess the true value of attention to advertising.
In general, the longer you look at ads, the more likely you are to remember them. Lumen has conducted hundreds of research projects over the years in which respondents are asked to view a page or a feed containing a number of ads and then complete a recall questionnaire. Analysis of this aggregated print and digital data set shows a clear connection between the time spent looking at ads and the likelihood of subsequent recall. Print advertising seems to be more attentionally efficient than digital advertising, generating more recall in a shorter amount of time on average. But both print and digital advertising follow the same pattern.
Up until now, we have been talking about attention as a cost. But this is only half the story. To understand the full picture, we have to understand the impact of attention on the desired outcome of the advertising. Only then can we assess the true value of attention to advertising.
In general, the longer you look at ads, the more likely you are to remember them. Lumen has conducted hundreds of research projects over the years in which respondents are asked to view a page or a feed containing a number of ads and then complete a recall questionnaire. Analysis of this aggregated print and digital data set shows a clear connection between the time spent looking at ads and the likelihood of subsequent recall.
Print advertising seems to be more attentionally efficient than digital advertising, generating more recall in a shorter amount of time on average. But both print and digital advertising follow the same pattern.
But does this general trend hold true for all brands? Is there a minimum attention threshold your ad needs to meet to be worth anything – or are some brands better than others at communicating quickly?
Here the answer is more complicated. It depends on who’s doing the talking (and what they are trying to say), and who’s doing the listening (and what they are prepared to hear).
The brand, the message, and the creative execution obviously have a major impact on the speed and efficacy of communication. From our datasets, we can see that famous brands deploying distinctive brand assets need far less time to be recognised and remembered than smaller brands. Big brands tend to more attentionally efficient than small brands because their visual assets are already familiar. This means that consumers are primed to recognise them after a shorter period of time being exposed to them.
As a case in point we can look at data from Lumen’s long-running print omnibus in the UK, where a group of randomly-recruited respondents are asked to read the first 10-15 pages of a newspaper while having their eyes tracked, before answering a short recall questionnaire. There is a strong relationship between attention time and recall. It is interesting to note that ads for the largest brands (like Tesco) not only generate higher levels of overall attention. They also need less time than the smaller brands (like the Co-op) for their ads to be remembered.
Part of the attentional efficiency of well-known brands is down to their use of existing brand assets. But the other side of the same coin is that they are well- known by the target audience. You are more likely to remember ads from brands you know than from less familiar brands. One of the drivers of the success of Tesco’s advertising is that there are so many more Tesco shoppers reading the paper, and Tesco shoppers are more likely to remember ads for their favourite store than those for others.
Similar effects can be observed when ads are well targeted. A study that Lumen conducted with the IAB UK in 2017 found that well-targeted digital ads achieved far higher levels of attention and recall than less relevant ads.
The relationship between attention and recall is, therefore, not simple. The creative design of the ads can make a difference. The familiarity of the audience with the brand can make a difference. The relevance of the offer can make a difference. Seasonality, timing, frequency, mood: all of these factors can influence attention levels and communication efficacy.
So, while there is a strong relationship in general between attention and recall, there are many devils in the detail.
