figure 4
The first thing you'll notice is that I live and die by my spellchecker. The next thing you'll notice is the email notification box in the lower right of the screen.
Not advertising, you say? I disagree. My email client is advertising the latest and greatest products it has available for my consumption: new emails. That box pops up for a few seconds when new emails come, and if I don't click on anything in it, it fades away.
I shared a lot of information in the last two paragraphs. Let's break it down to make it easier to follow.
- Most people's cognitive (higher-level) attention goes to the center of the screen. My spelling error is probably the first thing most viewers are cognitively aware of.
- My email client's advertisement isn't interfering with what the higher-level attention is focused on. It's out of the way and, if not acted upon, goes away.
- And because of Ask-Get-Use -- it asks for my attention by getting my attention in a way I'm not using my attention -- I pay attention to it with available resources in that multi-modal buffer. More exactingly, I pay just enough attention to it so that I can recognize and remember what's there, act upon or store the information for later recall, all without interfering with the rest of what my mind is devoting itself to, which is writing up this article.
Whispering to be seen, waving to be heard
Let me give you some Ask-Get-Use examples of ways to do this so as to get a response from a much larger audience, promote positive brand image, win friends and influence people. You're going to learn a little about working with the multi-modal filtering system and you'll do fine because it's actually very easy to do.
Let's start with whispering to be seen. Take a banner ad, any banner ad. Remove all the images and instead use a slowly scrolling text. Ad an audio component. The audio component is a voice over of the ad's target audience reading the words that are scrolling across the ad. The message must be simple, clean, neat and most importantly, it must tell a story that is actionable at its conclusion. The audio must be delivered at half to two-thirds the volume of whatever the user's computer volume is set at.
Most people set their computer speaker volume at a comfortable level for the various sounds they've selected to alert them -- get their attention without interfering with their current task -- that email has arrived, a news alert is available, they're being IMed, or some such.
Did you notice that without having to read through this article or know anything about the sciences involved, people are already creating environments where they're letting their multi-modal filtering system do some work?
By passing new auditory information to the site visitor at a level just below their self-selected comfort level, you've alerted their multi-modal system to pay attention with systems not already "online." This request is passed up through the multi-modal buffer to consciousness, and visitors scan the page to determine what's getting their attention. The scrolling text that is being read by the target audience's surrogate voice synchronizes multi-modal buffer and higher cognitive functions -- non-conscious and conscious resources -- onto the ad.
Stating the same in as few words as possible, you Asked for their attention by Getting their attention in a way they weren't Use-ing their attention. The end result is that they self-selected to pay attention to your ad. You didn't intrude, annoy or irritate. They gave you what you wanted because the website visitor didn't consciously know what you were doing, but that multi-modal buffer did.
Now let's wave our hands to get heard. Use a tower or rectangular ad with an animated image of a text-based "Did you know...?" This text is animated enough to demonstrate lateral (not vertical) movement without blurring the text or making it difficult to read. To the right of this text is an image of a target audience surrogate staring either a) out of the screen at the site visitor or b) at the oscillating text, shaking their head, no. Whether you use "a" or "b" depends on what you're advertising and to whom.
When the tower or rectangle is moused over, the surrogate shifts to the left of the ad and the product or service is showed on the right. Now the surrogate's gaze is focused on the solution area of the ad and they're visibly nodding with approval.
Summary
The first thing to remember when getting the attention you're paying for is Ask-Get-Use -- Ask for their attention by getting their attention in a way they're not using their attention. This is paramount. Getting someone's attention by hitting them over the head is no way to win friends and influence people. Oh, you'll win and influence a few, but they'll be neither your real target or your optimal numbers.
However, the Ask-Get-Use paradigm allows the prospect to willingly participate in the advertising process because you're using their own brain-mind system's to both get and keep their attention where you want it.
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Many and deep thanks to Susan Carrabis and Siusaidh McRae for helping in the writing of this paper, and to Kevin McBride for the the data collection, storage and interrogation system used in this research.
Joseph Carrabis is CRO and founder of NextStage Evolution and NextStage Global and founder of KnowledgeNH and NH Business Development Network. He was recently selected as a senior research fellow and board advisor for the Society for New Communications Research. Read full bio.