Year: 2022
Type: dissertation
Abstract: In an expanding digital landscape, a consumer’s attention level is a critical predictor of future behaviour. Prior technological constraints necessitated the use of proxy attention metrics insensitive to passive engagement and simultaneously distortive of visual engagement. Since proxy metrics are poor measures of engagement, advertising trading metrics don’t reflect true audience exposure and engagement - concerning for advertisers. Advances in non-invasive technology enable research to differentiate levels of visual attention and their relation to brand outcome variables. The purpose of this research is to generate empirical understanding of how consumer behaviour is influenced by levels of natural visual attention. While scholars have investigated the relationship between selective or ‘high’ attention and consumer behaviour, little is known about the role of peripheral or ‘low’ attention on behaviour. This is critical to advertising valuation, as more focused attention to advertising has been shown to increase the likelihood of brand memory creation while more diffuse attention can positively affect brand selection and preference. This thesis comprises three papers. The first proposes a conceptual framework of visual attention, relating the control and degree of different types of attention to advertising in relation to discreet brand outcomes. It extends attention theory to wider discussions surrounding advertising measurement and monetisation practices. The second paper empirically tests the role of repetition in digital advertising by investigating differences between high and low attention with single and repeated exposures in the context of brand choice and recall (prompted and unprompted). This research also explores the interacting effects of demographic variables, including gender, age, brand use, on the relationship between visual attention (high and low) and brand choice and recall. The findings reveal significant differences between the two forms of attention for brand outcomes. High attention predicts more brand choice and recall at first exposure than at second exposure, while low attention predicts more brand choice and recall at second exposure. This study contributes to attention, advertising and marketing literatures by relating two forms of natural audience attention to discreet brand outcomes. The third paper empirically examines the role of emotion in attention-based advertising appraisal by investigating the moderating effect of two dimensions of emotion – arousal and valence – on the relationship between visual attention (high and low) and brand outcomes. Arousal and valence can affect how consumers perceive advertising and their attention focus (Vanlessen, Rossi, de Raedt, & Pourtois, 2013). Beyond main emotional effects on brand outcomes, this research reveals significant interaction between valence and low attention on brand choice and unprompted recall. This paper contributes to the marketing literature by relating dimensions of emotion to a high/low model of visual attention. This study generates novel insight contributing to research and practice in attention theory, advertising monetisation practices, and advertising measurement. Advertisers, media owners, and digital platform holders can benefit because the research establishes that the value of attention is nuanced but demonstrable. To generate immediate impact from high attention viewership, advertisers may select high-cost advertising; conversely value remains attainable from lower-cost, low attention advertising more suited to repeated exposures.
Author: Ewens, Kellen
Language: English
Subfield: Marketing
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W6999812240