Dipartimento di Ingegneria Gestionale

Analysis of the impact of the digital context on the advertisement experience

About the project

Through an experimental research study, the project aimed at investigating the influence of the digital context on the perception of a video advertisement message. The evaluation of neurophysiological and behavioral responses of 60 subjects in terms of attention, engagement, pleasantness, memorization, dwell time and visual paths in the context of use was employed to appraise the message visibility, both concerning the time spent on the advertising message and the related elicited emotions.

Principal Investigators: Giuliano Noci, Lucio Lamberti

Researcher team: Marco Mandolfo, Riccardo Lolatto, Alessandra Mazzola, Anna Maria Bianchi

Funders: Teads

Duration: 2 months

KEY RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The project pursued the goal of assessing the impact of the online context on marketing metrics associated with views and recall of advertising messages conveyed in three digital contexts, namely Facebook, YouTube, and a Premium online newspaper. A dedicated experimental study was carried out to delve into the impact of the context of use on the visibility of an advertising message in terms of

  1. time spent by the user,
  2. attention effort employed,
  3. engagement elicited,
  4. pleasantness evoked,
  5. memorization effort and
  6. user experience of the advertising message.

The experimental acquisitions involved a sample of 60 subjects selected by age, gender, and use of digital devices. Electroencephalographic measurement devices (EEG) as well as eye-tracking tools were adopted to record subjects’ brain activity, cognitive processes and visual paths followed. Eventually, each subject had to undergo a survey exploring reported brand recall, cognitive and emotional reactions felt.

OUTPUTS & IMPACTS

The key research findings concerned:

  • Constrained behavioral perception of advertisement invasiveness in Premium online newspaper;
  • Interruption marketing phenomenon characterising the context of YouTube with high elicited awareness but lower attention effort and experience degree of pleasure;
  • Low experienced pleasantness associated with Facebook advertisement when compared to other posted contents;
  • Browsing mode on YouTube pointing to a tendency to focus the visual attention of those not interested on the “Skip” button area;
  • Lack of statistically significant difference between the three contexts in terms of self-reported recall.