Yang, Zhou, Jiang, and Huo (2021) test whether a creative banner is remembered when people are trying to get something else done on the page.

Creativity alone does not overcome banner blindness. In goal-directed tasks, creative banners are recognized more only when they are also highly visually salient and congruent with the page.

Method

Three studies measure recognition of banner ads, with scores adjusted for response bias. The design varies the user’s task (goal-directed versus free viewing), visual saliency, and whether the banner matches the page.

Main findings

  • Creativity is not sufficient. A creative banner is not remembered more by default.
  • Goal-directed viewing is the hard case. Under a task, creativity helps recognition only together with high visual saliency and page congruity.
  • Free viewing is a different regime. The boundary conditions are stated for goal-directed tasks, where banner blindness is strongest.

Why this is in the Darwin index

This is the online update to the outdoor conspicuity threshold: creative execution still depends on being salient in the visual field, and on fitting the page the person is actually using.

Source of record: doi:10.1108/JRIM-12-2019-0212.