1. Exposure and Attention MAR 3503 January 17, 2012

2. How do we take in information? Exposure External Stimuli Sights Sounds Smells Tastes Touch/Movement Heat, pressure, & motor receptors Tongue Nose Ears Eyes Sensory Receptors Attention Perception Comprehension Behavior

3. Exposure “The process by which the consumer comes into contact with the stimulus” – “Contact” defined loosely – “Stimulus” defined loosely Necessary! How would you get someone exposed to your new brand… – Of toothpaste? – Of bake-at-home cinnamon rolls? – Of car?

4. Exposure: What options are there? Obvious ads – Can take many different forms Here, the intent to persuade, cajole, convert is clear But, consumers may actively avoid obvious ads – VCRs – TiVo and other digital video recorders

5. Exposure to ads: A vicious cycle Advertisers then must try to catch consumers with their guard down – “Unique” ads – Strange formats Advergaming – Strange locations (and captive audiences)

6. Exposure to ads: A vicious cycle Disguised ads: – As editorial content Advertorials, infomercials – As something else But consumers learn to ignore these as well…

7. Exposure: What options are there? Product trial (this can take many forms) – Free samples – Test drives – Other methods of giving people experience with the product In-store (point of purchase) displays, announcements, etc.

8. Exposure: What options are there? Product placement – Movies – TV shows – Video games – Music videos

9. Mere exposure NB: This is correlational data To know whether liking is caused by exposure, frequency of exposure must be manipulated

10. Mere exposure Average affective connotation of nonsense words and Chinese ideographs as a function of frequency of exposure Manipulated frequency leads to increased liking!

11. Mere exposure Average attitude toward photographs as a function of frequency of exposure Manipulated frequency leads to liking!

12. Mere exposure Moreland & Beach, 1992

13. Mere exposure # of participants who agree with… Subliminal prime

14. Mere exposure 28 participants shown 2 photos of themselves and 2 photos of their lover (1 true print and 1 mirror image print each) and asked which they prefer Mere Exposure Hypothesis: Participants will prefer true print of lover, but mirror print of self (because that’s what they have been most exposed to) Preference for self Preference for lover

15. Mere exposure Music rats were raised on

16. What is attention? The processes by which we devote mental activity to a stimulus Some characteristics of attention – Can be voluntary or involuntary – Can be divided (with varying degrees of success) – Is limited, therefore must be selective We select one input and “tune out” the rest Some estimates say we see 700 commercials a week, maybe even 300 per day—but only ~75 get noticed. What gets through?

17. The selective nature of attention Shadow task – Subject hears one message in their right ear – Subject hears another message in their left ear, at the same time – Subject is forced to attend to one message by “shadowing,” or repeating, the message from one ear We can then stop the sound and quiz the subject about what they just heard on the unattended channel to see what happens to unattended information Developed by Cherry, 1953

18. What gets through? Short answer: Not much! – When the unattended channel switched from coherent English to “gibberish”—only 4 of 30 people noticed – If the unattended channel is just a 7-word list, repeated 35 times, recognition of those words is no better than chance in a later test – When the unattended channel switched to backwards speech, only a few could say that something was strange about the message

19. What gets through? Longer answer: some specific things get through – People aren’t deaf to the unattended channel. They can report general properties (music, a tone, a man, a woman, etc) – If the unattended channel contains names, including the participants’ names, about a third of people will hear that their names were mentioned Same goes for words that are important to you Cocktail-party effect – If a sentence starts in the attended ear, and then finishes in the unattended ear, people may inadvertently switch the ear that they’re shadowing

20. An informal model of selective attention People seemingly select (facilitate) one stimulus, and tune out (inhibit) the others And yet, at some level, they must be monitoring the unattended stimuli so that they know when to switch focus – Otherwise, relevant information couldn’t “break through” Both individual factors and source factors determine what will “break through” and be selected for attention

21. Individual factors: Motivation Sometimes we control what we want to attend to – Ex. “I want to look at car ads” Other times, our attention is involuntarily drawn by things that are personally relevant – Cocktail party effect (again) – Perceptual vigilance We may also without awareness stay away from things that are troubling – Perceptual defense

22. Individual factors: Resources Arousal – General degree of alertness – Affects how many cognitive resources can be devoted to stimulus (Affects ability to attend) Ex. Super Bowl ads

23. Source factors Novelty/Expectation violation – Unexpected ad or product format – Unexpected ad placement – Unexpected intrusion – “New” and novel prefixes (“e-” or “i-”) Position – Ex. Placement in a magazine Back cover Near front, right of page – Ex. Placement on store shelves

24. More source factors Vividness – Color – Music – Humor – Contrast Size – Ex. Magazine ads – Ex. Yellow pages – Ex. Animal crackers

25. Adaptation A individual x source factor We adapt, or habituate, to stimuli What once was novel and attention-getting may no longer be Adaptation leads to inattention Advertisers need to keep ad campaign current and fresh (but still maintain consistent brand image) – Ex. Energizer bunny ads

26. Summary There are many ways consumers can be exposed to products Increased exposure may lead to liking (the “mere exposure” effect) But exposure does not guarantee attention Attention is selective – Only a limited number of stimuli break through Certain characteristics will allow products to break through

27. Next up… What happens once information gets in? How is it understood?