Who won the Metro?

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.

It saddens me to no end that supermarkets can’t get along in sweet (or savoury) harmony. First it was Asda and Sainsbury’s; now it’s the battle of the painfully garish price-busting yellows. The supermarket claws are out in full swing this week as Lidl takes a swipe at Morrison’s price matching method to secure this week’s top spot in Who won the Metro?

Capturing the attention of 92% of readers for an average of 9.3 seconds – three times the expected level for the ad – Lidl really dug its claws in deep to try and win over budget-loving non-Waitrose shoppers.

Words may hurt, but commitment heuristics cut deeper, which is what Lumen says is the reason for the ad’s unusually high levels of engagement.

“The commitment heuristic essentially describes how people attribute more value to objects or ideas that they have made a personal investment in (be that time/effort/money),” said Lumen’s managing director, Mike Follett.

“Working in a similar way, a bias called the ‘escalation of commitment heuristic’ describes why such high engagement was found for this ad. It’s a phenomenon in which people justify increased investment in a decision, based on the cumulative prior investment.”

Lumen added that in this context, respondents may get to a certain ‘point of no return’ in the bullet-point narrative where they feel their prior investment of time and effort outweighs the urge to simply move on.

“Their commitment is escalated to the point where they thoroughly read the list. The witty narrative supplements this effect and the results are a hugely engaging ad,” Follett said.

Fun fact: The commitment heuristic is also known as the ‘IKEA effect’ due to a study finding that people over value the flat-pack furniture due to the investment of time and effort they invested when putting it together