A recent trend has seen companies engaged in consumer marketing seeking to measure the effectiveness of media other than the traditional main platform of TVCMs. i.e. just how effective are newspapers, magazines, outdoor ads, train ads, bus wraps etc in reaching their target audience. And what would be the effect of switching the copy in any of these media?

Market research shows that consumers in Japan see over 1,000 advertisements in one week. As "unseen can mean unsold", JMI has conducted eye tracking research across various media platforms including newspapers, billboards, train ads, vending machine POP and even mobile advertising on cars. This research has provided important learnings on the extent to which these advertisements are seen, recalled and influence the consumers' intent to purchase the products advertised. Furthermore we have been able to make recommendations for improving the effectiveness of the advertisements tested.

One of the findings from this research has been that the degree to which a given advertisement is "seen " and "recalled" varies significantly across media platforms, even for the same execution. Therefore, both the content and media platforms need to be considered carefully in terms of their match.

For example, advertisements shown on billboards, which might typically be observed from the inside of a passing car, should ideally include a large image and brand name in order to ensure that they are both seen and can be recalled. However, we have also seen cases where the same copy, used in newspapers has been seen (as measured by eye tracking) but not recalled.

Based on the research conducted, we believe that the reason for this is consumers' disposition or "needstate" with respect the information. So that those people who are in a state of mind where they are actively seeking information can be called "info-seekers" while others can be characterized "image-seekers."

In the case of newspapers, readers do tend to be in an "info-seekers" state of mind, so that advertisements that describe benefits are both seen and recalled more easily rather than those advertisements that comprise only of pictures and catch copy. In contrast, ads describing benefits have less chance of being recalled in train stations, where people's mindset for receiving information is more passive.

These findings were confirmed in a project conducted for a mobile phone carrier company.

The purpose of the research was to investigate how consumers look at newspaper ads, using eye tracking, and how many ads they were able to recall after this eye tracking exercise. The average time spent reading through the newspaper, which included 87 advertisements of various sizes and types, was found to be 17 minutes. It was also found that readers spent a total of 3 minutes (18% of the overall reading time) looking at the advertisements in the newspaper. But readers were only able to recall 9 of these advertisements (10%) spontaneously afterwards. As the readers focused on choosing articles of interest to them rather than checking the advertisements, we could say that most ads were not seen and so even fewer were recalled.

This test involved evaluating a mobile phone advertisement that comprised of a picture of the product and a brief explanation of its specifications. Very similar versions of the advertisements were tested in train and newspaper media. In the case of the train advertisement, 33% of respondents saw the ads and 13% of the respondents mentioned them during unaided recall. However, in the case of the newspaper advertisement, even though 50% of the respondents saw the commercial, that occupied a half page with rich color, none of the respondents went on to recall it afterwards.

Based on the general reading behavior observed though the eye-tracking, it would seem that most of the simple image-based advertisements in the newspaper failed to engage the target audience as their state of mind when reading the newspaper was that of being 'info seekers.' The advertisements thus had little influence on purchase intention towards the products advertised.

Based on these findings, a revised version of the newspaper advertisement was created in a format closer to that of an article. The objective was to gain viewers attention and increase consumers' understanding of the service. In the follow-on test, the target audience tended to start to read the article-style advertisement, but eventually realized that this was an advertisement. Nevertheless the overall levels of unaided recall and understanding were significantly boosted compared to the previous copy tested.

The research succeeded in highlighting the importance of considering consumers' state of mind, in the context of a given media platform, and when considering the type of design and copy to be used. In today's 360-degree media environment this type of consideration is only likely to increase...

For more information on ads eye tracking research in Japan, contact: Jeff Matsui