HOW DOES MOBILE ADVERTISING IMPACT OUR MINDS?

How does advertising impact our minds?

Source: ARF Experiential Learning, ARF Annual Conference 2017 Downloaded from WARC

This paper investigates consumers’ biometric responses to a range of different mobile advertising formats, including interstitial, in-stream and sidekick units.

84 per cent of users produced a biometric response to interstitial advertisements.

However, the study suggested that in-stream and sidekick units may be the most effective, as they offer greater visual attention and memorability, whilst being less intrusive than interstitial advertisements.

Interstitial advertisements should be used in moderation, in order to limit their potentially negative effects on user experience.

Abstract The mobile ecosystem is faced with challenges to preserve a positive user experience while allowing advertisers to promote their products and services through various ad formats. The growing mobile ad industry launches several new creative formats every year, and it is apparent that these formats play a role in user experience and ad effectiveness. For example, it is presumed that interstitial ads garner the greatest level of advertising effectiveness, thus being viewed as highly valuable to advertisers. Meanwhile, publishers may view the smaller, less on-screen ad units to have a better user experience. Unfortunately, appropriate research to study the emotional response of being interrupted on mobile devices and its connection to advertising effectiveness has seldom been conducted.

Background Verification of an ad being viewed is the first step in determining effectiveness. "Viewability" is often used as currency and sometimes translated to effectiveness, neglecting the fact that viewability provides the user with an opportunity to see - not verifying that the ad was seen. Ad formats can easily play a role in visual attention, which in turn, can influence subsequent effects such as message processing and emotional impact.

In order to measure the level of emotional impact that different ad formats have on a user, researchers must go beyond traditional research tools such as a post-experience survey or interview. Smartphones are highly task-

oriented devices in which users return to their activities after the onset of mobile ads. Measuring the level of perceived annoyance through post-experience testing will not give researchers an accurate measure due to a variety of variables: elapsed time, the users' return to original activity, preconceived views of mobile ads, and other factors. Thus, emotional response must be measured on a constant basis, and in the moment of ad onset.

Post-experience surveys help determine the rational effects of various ad formats, including memory of advertised brands and perceptions of tested ad formats.

The tools used in this study helped researchers connect rational and emotional responses to aid in answering the following research questions: 1. How do different ad formats compare in terms of brand recall?

2. How well are each of the ad formats evaluated by viewers, especially in terms of perceived annoyance?

3. Does visual engagement with ads vary across the individual ad formats?

4. How are biometrics and emotional responses impacted by each ad format?

Methodology Mobile users were recruited to view premium editorial content, which included five ad formats across five brands within different industry verticals. A 5x5 Graeco-Latin Square design was used to ensure that all five ad formats were equally represented by all brands, while also controlling for potential order and pairing effects. Eye tracking, biometrics (EDA), and post-exposure survey tools were used within MediaScience's neuroscience lab —a controlled testing environment.

Testing/analysis summary Devices: Smartphones (iOS, Android) Editorial Content: Four articles across two publishers Ad Formats: Adhesion, In-Stream, Sidekick, Interstitial Advertisers: CPG, Telco, Auto, Finance, Retail Analysis: Findings are based on 90% statistical significance

Findings summary Adhesion

Adheres to the bottom of the screen and stays with users as they scroll down the page.

Adhesion units are viewed as the most common and traditional mobile ad unit, and as a result are easily avoided and missed by users.

Adhesions are perceived as less intrusive and more well-placed than interstitials, but have significantly less visual attention than all other tested ad formats.

Marketers should capitalize on its favored placement and include animation and frame builds to attract visual attention and enhance branding to improve recall.

In-Stream

Appears within the stream of editorial content.

In-Stream units have shown to provide users the opportunity to focus on mobile ads at their own discretion.

In-Stream units perform similarly to Interstitials in visual attention, but outperform Interstitials in visual retention, including looking back at the ad over four times, and continued visual attention after the initial onset.

In-Stream units are not perceived as disruptive, annoying, or intrusive, and are liked by users.

Biometric response was lowest for the In-Stream unit—significantly lower than Interstitials, which is likely due to the control users have in seeing the ads.

Memory of the advertised brands were similar to other ad formats.

Publishers should consider re-evaluating CPM and sales efforts to ensure In-Stream units are premium inventory, due to the similar branding effects, higher attention, and lower negative emotional response than interstitials.

Interstitial

Served between content pages.

The branding impact of Interstitial ads on mobile may not be worth the negative costs that come with it.

Initial visual attention is high, with 71% seeing the ad, and 9 in 10 of those seeing it immediately after onset.

However visual retention is low, with users looking back at the ad less than two times.

Interstitials appear to have received negative biometric response and negative ad evaluations. As expected, they are seen as disruptive, annoying, intrusive and not well-placed.

Effects on unaided memory are not different from most other ad formats, however when cued, Interstitials performed better than hovers and Sidekicks.

Publishers should consider limited use of Interstitials to preserve user experience.

Marketers should ensure branding is prominent and visible to capture attention near onset.

Sidekick

Kargo-exclusive unit featuring a silhouette appended to the side of the screen. Stays persistent as users scroll through content.

Kargo's Sidekick provides brands with continued visual attention without the negative costs.

Sidekicks perform similarly to other formats in visual attention, but significantly outperform Interstitials in visual retention, including looking back at the ad over 6 times.

Sidekicks also provide continued visual attention after initial onset by an average of 17% of users continuing to look at the ad up to 60 seconds after onset, compared to a 2% average for Interstitials.

Biometrics and survey data indicated a positive response due to lack of perceived disruption, annoyance and intrusion.

Sidekicks were liked significantly more than interstitials.

Memory of advertised brands was similar to other ad formats.

Publishers and marketers should capitalize on positive features of Sidekicks (movement, size) and focus on scaled and consistent branding to improve memory.

Visual attention Definitions % Looked: Composition of participants who looked at the ad Time Looked: The total time a participant looked at an ad, averaged across participants Fixations: The number of fixations that occur within an ad when it was on screen

Revisits: The number of times a participant looks away and then back at an ad after the first look Viewability provides researchers with data to determine if an ad loaded the way it was intended. It produces the ability to know if consumers had the opportunity to see an ad. But it does not reveal if it actually was seen by the user (i.e., production of visual engagement). The next step after an ad is loaded would be to determine if it was actually seen, allowing researchers the ability to measure the differences in visual attention between different ad formats. In this study, eye tracking tools provided the opportunity to measure the composition of participants whose eyes focused on ad units, time, fixations, revisits, latency and attention over time.

Visual looks, duration, and fixations did not differ between In-Stream, Sidekick, and Interstitial ad units. However, Adhesion units were looked at by less users and for less time, and with fewer fixations than the other units, which is understandable given its size, delivery, and traditional placement. They are easier to be missed.

Visual Retention Interstitials performed lower (at levels of statistical significance), compared to In-Stream and Sidekick for the number of times a user looked back at the ads. This points to the inability to view other content while an interstitial is on screen, and the user's search for the "x" to close the ad. In-Stream units also outperformed Adhesions.

Latency to First View As expected, users look at Interstitial ads as soon as they are displayed. Users also look at Sidekicks— which take up a small amount of space—within the first one second of display. This demonstrates the importance that movement has in capturing user attention on mobile. In-Stream units elicit attention up to 40 seconds after onset, demonstrating that these units give users the opportunity to choose when they want to look at the ad, thus providing a better user experience.

Attention Timeline

While most users see Interstitial ads as soon as they are displayed, there is not much visual attention produced after the initial onset because users close the ads faster. Meanwhile, users continue to glance at the Sidekick units up to a minute after they are displayed. Similar findings can be seen with In-Stream units. This further validates the hypothesis that non-intrusive, consistent ads which attract attention put control into the users' hands, so that they can decide when they want to look at the ads.

Biometrics Biometric tools measure the intensity of change that a stimuli has—in this case, mobile ads. Electrodermal activity (EDA)—or skin conductance—was used for this study to measure changes in physiological arousal.

Biometric intensity results are reported as a change from a stimulus onset baseline, which normalizes EDA and allows it to be compared across participants and ad formats.

84% of users produced a biometric response when they saw Interstitial ads, which also exhibited the strongest intensity—significantly higher than In-Stream units, which had a very low intensity. It is understandable that InStream units yielded a lower intensity since attention was controlled by the user.

Biometric Intensity

Biometric intensity over time showed how average emotional response changed over the first five seconds of seeing the ad. Interstitials elicited the highest levels of biometric intensity, followed by Sidekick units. The longer an Interstitial stayed in view, the higher the biometric intensity score. Sidekicks produced a similar trend, but not as high. Based on self-reported data also collected in this study, it was determined that the subconscious responses here between the two formats are inversely related.

Biometric Intensity By Time

Conscious response Ad Evaluation Interstitials are seen as disruptive, annoying, and intrusive—over indexing in each, while the other ad formats under-indexed. As far as overall liking of the ads, users liked In-Stream and Sidekicks. Adhesions are liked less than In-Stream and Sidekick units (at levels of statistical significance), and Interstitials are liked less than Sidekicks (again, at a levels of statistical significance). Results are indicative of user preference for non-

intrusive, innovative advertising as opposed to traditional units.

Memory The field of psychology lends to media researchers the intricacies of memory, which follow a series of steps in achieving true memory of events and information. There are three mental processes involved in information processing which include encoding, storage, and retrieval... There are three measures in research which address these three mental processes involved in information processing—recognition, cued recall, and free recall (MediaScience 2008).

Brand recognition, which is a measure of cognitive encoding, revealed that brands in Interstitial ads were recalled more than Adhesion and Sidekick units, demonstrating that people were able to encode brands from Interstitials better than Adhesions and Sidekicks. This is likely a result of the visual stimulation and size that Interstitials provide over the other formats.

Cued recall, a measure of cognitive storage, activated an associated memory, causing users to recall the advertised brand when cued with a product category - with an average of one in five users storing the information. However, there were no significant differences seen between the formats.

Free recall, a measure of cognitive retrieval, is the strongest measure of memory since it encompasses the measurement of all three stages of information processing. It does not provide any cues to the participant, and this is where brands strive to be - retrievable by stored information and remembered without any assistance.

There were no statistically significant differences between the ad formats in this study in terms of free recall.

Conclusion Overall, results of this study suggest that In-Stream and Sidekick units may be the most effective for mobile advertising, among the tested formats. These ads come with the benefits of greater visual attention and memorability, but do not have the same negative consequences of interstitial ads, such as being perceived as

more "intrusive."

Interstitial ads should be used in moderation to limit the negative effects on user experience. The lack of visual retention demonstrates the need to incorporate scaled, prominent branding, and simple, uncluttered messaging.

Product testing should be incorporated in company roadmaps for developing new ad formats and making changes to current ones, including concept tests, user experience testing, beta tests, and performance tracking.

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