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Summary
TV commercials are getting shorter and shorter, mimicking their digital counterparts, but how good are they at capturing viewers’ attention? ARF researchers Henry G. Wolf VII and Paul Donato evaluated the effectiveness of more than 3,000 short-form advertisements (:06s vs. :15s and :30s) and found a host of factors driving visual attention for the sixes that were very different from :15s and :30s.
Among the findings:
- Daypart (the part of the day in which an advertisement ran) had the biggest effect on visual attention for :15s and :30s.
- Conversely, daypart did not play a significant role in visual attention to :06s.
- Instead, advertisement pairing and pod position both played an important role for :06.
- Placing as many as four advertisements from one brand in the same program could increase attention to :06s.
- Time shifting also tended to increase visual attention to :06s.
Henry G. Wolf (hwolf@thearf.org) is a senior data scientist at the ARF. He is pursuing a doctoral degree in perception, action, and cognition at the University of Connecticut. His research involves computational modeling of reading and dyslexia.
Paul Donato (pdonato@thearf.org) is chief research officer at the ARF. Previously he was chief research officer for The Nielsen Company and CEO and cofounder of Kantar Media. He also founded the geospatial insights firm, Jatopond and serves on the Future State Committee of the National Air and Space Museum.