what is there to be seen and what we actually notice
The snippet below from Consumer.ology by Philip Graves - a tome who's place on the plannery types bookshelf should be taken as a given - gives further power to the argument that getting advertising and branding noticed in the first place and subsequently remembered in buying situations is our imperative.
And furthermore should raise alarm at how often and easily the lofty goals such as consumer engagement and deep emotional connections are trotted out as likely and achievable.
The reality being that people don't think about brands very much, nor do they know much about them or particularly care.
While this sounds grim, what it really describes is the opportunity for creativity.
I think it was Dave Trott who said that the most important question on any creative brief, yet the one that rarely appears is 'how does this piece of advertising get noticed?'.
Anyway, I digress.
Here's the science bit.
"According to researchers from Penn University, the human eye can transmit approximately 10 million pieces of information per second.
Regardless of the mind-boggling quantities of data involved, anyone who has ever spent any amount of time looking for something, and then found it in one of the places they had already checked, will know that there is a big difference between what is there to be seen and what we actually notice.
The highest estimates suggest that the most we’re able to process is around 40 pieces of information per second (from all our senses, not just visually), so you can forgive yourself for not finding those keys first time around!"
There is a big difference between what is there to be seen and what we actually notice.
In psychology one description of this phenomenon is 'inattentional blindness'.
Which leads me to this 'card-trick' from Richard Wiseman, kindly shared with us by Wiemer Snijders.
We are into card ticks this week, I played a simple one on the audience at AIMIA last week, as a faux-mass hypnosis memory experiment.
I subsequently recieved several messages asking how it was done.
As my magic-circle application is pending, unfortunately I can't reveal.
