Driving Skills and Billboard Viewing

What has Driving Skills got to do with a Billboard Viewing? A lot.

Driving is all about the skills and focus on the road, whilst roadside OoH Advertising is about Attention (cognitive ability). Attentional resource theorists suggest, when brain resource capacity (brain-workload) increases then performances degrades. And we get tired and make mistakes after prolonged activity. But while driving, unless one is really tired, it isn’t necessarily true that our focus is always at the highest level.

Various research work done by Young and Stanton (2002), Martens & Fox (2007), Yanko & Spalek (2013) and Paolo Intini (2016) suggest that route familiarity ?? leads to a greater distraction while driving, because familiarity increases the effect of “mind wandering” ??, thereby loosing focus.

“Route Familiarity” can happen in two ways

(a) If it is a REGULAR ROUTE – like home to office and back or

(b) ROAD PREDICTABILITY – like a straight long highway. Ever wondered, why deadly accidents happen primarily on those highways which are supposedly congenial.

Young and Stanton’s MART (Malleable Attentional Resources Theory) proposed that attentional capacity ?? and thereby driving performance ?? are inversely proportional to the function of mental workload. Outdoor advertising ?? is all about how people on the move, capture the Outdoor Advertising Imagery. The notion that anything one sees, goes straight into the brain is the biggest misconception. Is that why we call it the “Third Eye”?

Still, how does it make a difference to outdoor advertising? It affects in two ways:

1) Outdoor Media Strategy: Because Contextual Memory ?? and Circadian Rhythm ???? gets heavily involved in our lives when we are out of home. But that discussion we can have some other time.

2)?Outdoor Media Location: Which type of locations works best when the Attentional Capacity is highest and nudged? And which kind of OOH media sites appear in Visual Accuity?

Sites having LONG VISIBILITY: Most advertisers salivate when they get opportunity of picking up a billboard with very long visibility. But it comes with a catch.

If the site gets fixated ?? within saccades of the eyes (rapid movement of the eye between fixation points) at a long distance, but the brain failed to decipher the information within, then consider an opportunity lost. The viewer is unlikely to bring the same site within fresh saccades ?? as he/she moves closer. So, size of font, logo, etc. plays a major role, when viewed from long. (Recall one my previous post). The other problem is that Long Visible sites are most of the time positioned on straight roads, where familiarity or predictability is high, thereby low mental load and alertness ??, leading to a smaller number of fixations within the saccades.

Sites on the CURVE/TURN: The best that serves the purpose. Because the mental overload is higher as the eyes and mind must cope with the turn with higher alertness. Thereby higher number of fixations in between saccades occurs. The same logic can be applied to sites suddenly visible when one reaches at the top of a bridge or a flyover.

?One can take a note that in railway platforms or at airports, as you take a turn left or right the first OoH Display which comes to fore has the highest recognition and better than the ones visible down the aisle. Or the medium placed at the landing area of the escalator. Viewing time maybe short but they hit the sweet spot.

?Sites that are ON OR AWAY FROM THE SIDEWALKS: Such medium is usually termed as “deflected” sites and aren’t that popular in choice. But if the audience is chauffer driven and seated at the rear, what she manages to see head-on are two massive head-rests in front. That leaves a small aperture for her to get her attention in front. So, she usually chooses to look out through her window. And that’s where displays placed on side walks and even further away works. Same goes for the viewers availing public transport in India.

Various Oddball Paradigm studies (please see the box for details) suggest that when we are exposed with the same Billboard advert, in two different settings, our positive and negative emotional-evocative stimulus would be different.

Sites around RUN-DOWN ENVIRONMENT: Will create positive stimuli and will be higher than a neutral surrounding. Hence mediums near slum areas or around unclean environments, may not be preferred by most advertisers, but will get attention from the viewers and with positivity.

Site at NICE (SCENIC, HERITAGE, CLEAN) SPOTS: Will create negative stimuli and will be higher than a neutral surrounding. Mediums not in sync with or if blocking lovable environments might be hated and arouse negative sentiments. Media owners should be very careful about choosing suchspots and the design and architecture chosen for the media vehicle.