Ads that run across a single media brand are deemed to be stronger than those that run across varied content, according to a new study carried out by Heat magazine and Neuro Insight.
The results, presented exclusively at the ‘Heat: A journey into neuroscience’ event last week, revealed that people are more likely to have a strong emotional response and greater propensity to remember an ad when it is placed within one ‘consistent media brand’.
The neuroscience approach was taken in order to study the emotional response of the brain (the right side), as well as the rational approach (the left side), with Bauer Media’s CEO Paul Keenan and Heat’s editor-in-chief Lucie Cave reiterating that ads that drive an emotional response are more likely to be remembered.
Emotional response was proven to drive purchase intent; the higher the emotional intensity, the higher the memory encoding, which increases the likelihood of making a purchase.
However, to gather the results, respondents were shown five different ad campaigns across multiple platforms – five all within the Heat brand content (magazine, online and radio etc), and five across the same platforms but with different competitors for each.
Though the differences were small, the results showed that “consistent [publisher] branding” drives a greater response in the brain, particularly the right hand, emotional side.
When it comes to print and online, the results found that more evocative ads work better in print, while more detailed ads work better online.
Print was found to be good for engagement, particularly with specific titles, whereas online is more about attention – the way that people interact with their laptops, smartphones and tablets.
