Study contradicts conventional wisdom on static vs motion spots

October 26, 2009 by Dave Haynes

Denis Gaumondie has a post up on his Euro-centric Ooh-TV news portal about some really interesting new research that contradicts some conventional wisdom about content for moving audeinces.

The conventional thinking is that if an audience is stationary, as in sitting around a waiting room, motion in advertising is essential. But for moving audiences, such as people walking through a public space, static visuals are better.

Reports Ooh-TV:

At the OVAB Europe conference, Doris Braune (Marketing Ströer-Infoscreen) presented the results of a study by Ströer to measure the effectiveness of a moving image in comparison to a fixed image.

More precisely, Ströer wanted to measure the impact of Infoscreen, its digital signage network deployed in German public transport systems, compared to more traditional static postering.

The study was carried out by two research companies specialised in cerebral imagery – Neuro-Impact from Munich and Neuro-Insight from Australia. For each of the 84 individuals on the panel, they measured personal interest, emotional intensity, brand recall and impact for four different poster campaigns.

The participants were fitted with sensors to measure their cerebral activity, then immersed in a virtual public transport journey during which they were exposed to campaigns on Infoscreen and on static posters.

The results showed that a moving image on Infoscreen generated an increase of:

– 28% personal interest versus a fixed image;

– 36% emotional intensity versus a fixed image;

– 28% recall versus a fixed image;

– 46% brand recognition versus a fixed image.

Ströer also measured the impact of two different types of editorial content – quizzes and society news. Both achieved high ratings on the first three parameters (personal interest, emotional intensity and recall).

  1. Thanks for the post!

    Do you know of a study that has been performed that compares digital signage with movement and digital signage without movement? We always see studies like this one that prove the digital signage concept; comparing it with a print poster.

    This is a ‘no-brainer’ for us. LCD screens alone grab the eyeball because of the back light, and digital signage allows for different pages to change out.

    I would like to see a study performed that compares digital signage with motion video, animations and flash with digital signage that has clean content without movement. I would like to see which is more effective by way of sales uplifts, message retention etc… To me, looking at a digital sign that has a message and an animation, distracts the viewer from it’s original purpose, and that is as bad as a pop up window on a website.

    Sincerely,

    Andrew Hoffman
    Vice President
    Noventri
    20940 Twin Springs Dr.
    Smithsburg, MD 21783-1510 USA
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    andrewh@noventri.com
    Skype ID: Spec-Comm
    http://www.noventri.com
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    http://blog.noventri.com/

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