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A marketer’s guide to overcoming banner blindness
Article Highlights:
> There are now numerous experiments confirming the existence of banner blindness
> Even though banner ads are not consciously detected, they do involve the creation of long-term memory
> Banner ads that are mainly visual are fairly effective at influencing future response
Banner blindness has a varied history. Common understanding is that banner ads are not seen. The first research into banner blindness determined that people had learned to avoid seeing banner ads. This was later confirmed by eye-tracking studies, which show that as people become more experienced with the web, their pattern of eye movements indicates they learn to avoid looking at banner ads. This phenomena has become known as "banner blindness." However, the fact that people do not focus on banner ads does not necessarily mean the ad is not affecting them. Just as there is research to show that unnoticed exposure to ads in the real world still affects brand recognition and response, research is emerging to show the same phenomena occurs with regard to banner ads.
While we may learn not to focus our eyes directly on an ad, it is still visible within our peripheral vision, and it has an impact from there. In November 2009, a researcher in France, Franck Largeault, took this research one step further, examining how much impact unnoticed banner ads have, and whether different banner designs have different effects. The results are stunningly clear-cut and have strong implications for ad design
Read more at http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/25737.asp
