Who won the Mirror?
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 was a sad day when national treasure Kerry Katona decided* that she no longer wanted to be the face of thrifty frozen goods – a moment’s silence please – but Iceland appears to still be doing alright for itself (somehow) and has bagged the top spot in this week’s Who won the Mirror?
Well, it’s certainly no M&S Christmas (*waits patiently for festive food porn*), but an ad for some budget-friendly-looking mince pies with three carefully placed bits on a fork managed to draw in the hungry eyes of 94% of Mirror readers for an average of 3.4 seconds – which Lumen says is down to the high contrast font colour, quality images and “luxury” product; but I say we just really bloody love Iceland.
The research also revealed that women that had children under the age of 16 living at home with them looked at the ad for 1.3 seconds longer than those that didn’t. (Insert joke about mums going to Iceland.)
The secondary features, such as the roundel and comparison list, were read by a considerable number of people, which also contributed to the above average engagement with the ad.
Delving a little deeper into the success of the ad, Lumen founder Mike Follett said that, basically, we’re all like Pavlov’s dogs.
“From a very early age, most of us learn to associate Christmas with positive feelings, which, year after year, are reinforced,” he explained.
“Consequently, merely seeing a bit of tinsel or the scent of pine can be enough to bring back feelings of cosy nostalgia.
“In psychological terms, this is a process in which a repeated simultaneous exposure to two previously unrelated stimuli leads to a learned or “conditioned” association, this is commonly known as classical or Pavlovian conditioning.
“One of the ways in which successful Christmas advertising can work is through a process known as “evaluative conditioning”. This works by an emotionally affective stimulus being paired repeatedly with another emotionally neutral stimulus. Consequently, the emotion associated with the first stimulus becomes associated with the second.
“If used in the correct way, people could be conditioned to associate the positive emotion, already associated with Christmas, with a brand.
“These associations don’t stand alone; in fact we build a web of associations with each brand we are aware of. These networks of associations are known in neurology as a brand engram.”
Now, don’t mind me; just popping to Waitrose for an essential mince pie.
*/was sacked for reasons