IN DEPTH: Why on-screen movement is essential
Much research into digital out-of-home audiences concentrates on counting people – but a recent project by UK airport operator BAA and its advertising contractor JCDecaux Airport suggests that how their eyeballs move is equally important.
Using technology from Eyetracker which employs miniature cameras to record eye movements, field of vision and focus, researchers found that people do not scan their environment in a linear manner, but frequently switch their focus back and forth from the middle distance as they search for relevant visual stimuli.
This means that rather than gazing at an advertisement for a prolonged period, individuals see each screen for just 0.3sec at a time – a figure that JCDecaux says is typical for digital out-of-home – and absorb its message by putting together these brief exposures.
Repetition of the message is therefore vital, according to JCDecaux.
And so is movement. JCDecaux Airport marketing director Richard Malton said: “[The research] has proved that even small movements capture passengers’ attention, which has important implications for the introduction of live feeds and countdowns on our digital airport panels [DAPs], to constantly refresh the screens for the eye.”
The company has already changed the presentation of advertising on its DAPs to reflect the research. A brief countdown now precedes each ad, to attract the eyes of viewers on the move.
The importance of on-screen movement was backed up by interviews with the research participants. 94 percent said moving advertising was more striking than static, and 44 percent said movement was the most important factor in an ad, although the research also found that the mere presence of any movement was more significant than its quantity: even a small element of motion attracted the eye.
The research was conducted with 20 travellers in the international departure lounge of Terminal 5 at London Heathrow, which houses 89 of JCDecaux’s DAPs.
The Eyetracker technology was originally developed for defence applications.
www.eyetracker.co.uk
www.jcdecauxairport.co.uk
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Eye's attraction to movement.
Posted 16/07/09 20:29 by Scott Sharon
Your article was interesting to me because I'm in the digital signage business. There has been much research on this topic, in fact my friend Paco Underhill (Envirosell) has made a good living doing that and related studies for 20-30 years. Your eye's attraction to movement is an instinct passed down over the centuries from back when man had to be aware of and alert to danger (or movement) in order to stay alive. It has also been discovered that movement causes more focus on what is being seen and makes it to more likely to be retained.