Judgments at Gaze Value: Gaze Cuing in Banner Advertisements, Its Effect on Attention Allocation and Product Judgments

Abstract

Banner advertising is a popular means of promoting products and brands online. Although banner advertisements are often designed to be particularly attention grabbing, they frequently go unnoticed. Applying an eye-tracking procedure, the present research aimed to (a) determine whether presenting human faces (static or animated) in banner advertisements is an adequate tool for capturing consumers’ attention and thus overcoming the frequently observed phenomenon of banner blindness, (b) to examine whether the gaze of a featured face possesses the ability to direct consumers’ attention toward specific elements (i.e., the product) in an advertisement, and (c) to establish whether the gaze direction of an advertised face influences consumers subsequent evaluation of the advertised product. We recorded participants’ eye gaze while they viewed a fictional online shopping page displaying banner advertisements that featured either no human face or a human face that was either static or animated and involved different gaze directions (toward or away from the advertised product). Moreover, we asked participants to subsequently evaluate a set of products, one of which was the product previously featured in the banner advertisement. Results showed that, when advertisements included a human face, participants’ attention was more attracted by and they looked longer at animated compared with static banner advertisements. Moreover, when a face gazed toward the product region, participants’ likelihood of looking at the advertised product increased regardless of whether the face was animated or not. Most important, gaze direction influenced subsequent product evaluations; that is, consumers indicated a higher intention to buy a product when it was previously presented in a banner advertisement that featured a face that gazed toward the product. The results suggest that while animation in banner advertising constitutes a salient feature that captures consumers’ visual attention, gaze cuing can be an effective tool for driving viewers’ attention toward specific elements in the advertisement and even shaping consumers’ intentions to purchase the advertised product.

Increased Preference and Value of Consumer Products by Attentional Selection

“…Although the results of Janiszewski et al (2013) are promising and in line with observations from marketing research that increased visual attention on a product increases the product’s preference (Chandon et al, 2009; Palcu et al, 2017), they are nevertheless limited. The reason is that, for constructing stimulus pairs for the preference-choice task whose items were originally of equal preference, the researchers used products that were unknown to the participants.…”

“…Indeed, consumers are exposed to visually complex environments in many supermarkets and online shops, where they selectively attend to some products and neglect others. Furthermore, marketing applies tools to create selective attention, for example, by shelf placements (Atalay et al, 2012) or gaze cueing (Palcu et al, 2017). Finally, selective attention could be easily implemented as advertising in computer games.…”

Beyond Self-Report: A Review of Physiological and Neuroscientific Methods to Investigate Consumer Behavior

“…Eye tracking research has also revealed how the composition of marketing information guides attention and subsequently impacts evaluation and choice. For instance, in a study by Palcu et al (2017) participants were presented with online advertisement banners showing faces and products. The authors manipulated whether the models’ gaze was directed at the product.…”

Turning the other cheek: Facial orientation influences both model attractiveness and product evaluation

“…Previous studies show that the gaze direction of a model may influence the evaluation of advertised products and advertisements (Adil, Lacoste-Badie, & Droulers, 2018;Palcu, Sudkamp, & Florack, 2017). Therefore, the difference in gaze direction between the two conditions may potentially have confounded the effect of face orientation on the evaluation of the displayed product.…”

“…This composition might have resulted in the model in the leftward condition appearing to avert her gaze from the product, while the model in the rightward condition seems to be gazing directly toward the product. Previous studies show that the gaze direction of a model may influence the evaluation of advertised products and advertisements (Adil, Lacoste‐Badie, & Droulers, 2018; Palcu, Sudkamp, & Florack, 2017). Therefore, the difference in gaze direction between the two conditions may potentially have confounded the effect of face orientation on the evaluation of the displayed product.…”