Who won the Mail? #7

Have you ever wondered which ads placed in the national newspapers are the most effective at engaging readers? Newsline has partnered with Lumen Research to find out.

Despite the floods (cue Ukip) another Bank Holiday once again confirmed that Britain does, indeed, love its booze. And cheap booze at that, with last week’s winning ads (ohh, plural – controversial!) in the Mail belonging to the nation’s supermarket sweethearts… Asda and Morrisons. (Well, I guess it’s better than Iceland.)

While both supermarkets used similar techniques to promote their bank holiday offers (basically lots of wine and lots of meat), each was successful in its own way.

The results, which are determined using eye-tracking technology that measures how long somebody looks at an ad, where the eyes go to first and which parts are most popular, revealed that 100% of readers looked at Asda’s ad, spending an average of 3.3 seconds deciding on whether to go for the Strongbow or the Stella (classy), before turning their attention to the delectable range of meaty treats on the opposite page.

A double page spread of canary yellow (a personal favourite) meant that while standout was significantly less than Asda (84% on one page and 81% on the other), readers were engaged with Morrison’s selection of bank holiday bargains for a combined total of 4.9 seconds.

“Bank holidays mean big opportunities for supermarkets to sell plenty of food and drink,” said Mike Follett, founder of Lumen.

“Asda achieved 100% standout, however, the heatmap shows that very little attention went to the other produce towards the bottom of the ad.”

Nonetheless, Follett said that with success from its last bank holiday ad, Asda has found a “great formula” for bank holiday advertising and is clearly sticking with it.

Well, Asda and Morrisons, you’ve clearly got the attention of the Mail’s readers. But sorry, I’ll still be shopping at Waitrose.