EYE TRACKING RESEARCH

“Eye tracking helps optimize ad design and increase the

efficiency of advertising. In advertisement impact research, it’s a
Media research mix of interviewing and technical processing that yields the most
valuable insight. In this respect, eye tracking has become an
indispensable tool.”
Dr. Simon Ottler, Professor of Communications Management at the Baden-Wuerttemberg
Cooperative State University in Ravensburg and Director of the Steinbeis Research Center
“Advertising and Communications”

Attention and recollection are
essential indicators of
advertisement impact.
In order to gain insight into the
link between ad design, eye
movement during ad perception
and recollection of the brand
name of advertised products,
the Baden Wuerttemberg
Cooperative State University
carried out a series of
advertisement design tests.
The study, which used a Tobii
T60 Eye Tracker, showed a high
correlation between time to first
fixation on the brand name and
recall. Well designed ads, in
which the brand name was
strategically placed , performed
up to 100 percent better.
Key questions asked
The objective of the study was to identify
perceptive behavior towards different ad
designs and their impact on recollection,
especially:
• Which specific elements of the ad
captured the most attention?
• How long did it take to spot the brand
name the first time?
• How does the “time to first fixation” relate
to the recollection?
• Is there any difference in recollection
between ad designs where the brand
name was recognized immediately and
those where the brand name was
recognized eventually?
• Is there any difference between unaided
and aided recollection?
The study
Research was carried out in the ad lab at the
Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State
University in Ravensburg in 2009.
20 different ads of brands that varied little in
their brand awareness, and all of which were
published in the same period of time in
popular magazines, were chosen as study
objects. The ads were shown to 24 test
subjects belonging to the target group of the
magazines.
Using the Tobii T60 Eye Tracker, each
person was exposed to each of the 20 ad
designs for 5 seconds. In all, the eye
tracking session lasted about two minutes
for each person.
The test subjects were shown the ads
randomly, either at the beginning, the middle
or the end of the presentation, in order to
prevent any serial effects that might
influence the results.
The eye tracking test was combined with a
subsequent interview that among other
elements included an unaided and an aided
recall test. In the unaided recall test,
subjects were asked which of the brands
advertised in the ads they could recall
spontaneously. In the aided recall test the
test subjects were given a list of the
advertised products and were asked to
indicate the brand names they recalled.
To determine the test subjects’ attention foci
when looking at the ad designs, the Tobii
Studio software was used to automatically
generate heatmaps. The heatmap builds on
aggregated eye tracking data from several
test subjects and is a powerful tool to
visualize perceptive behavior. The following
example is a heatmap generated on an ad for
a brand of yoghurt:

A test subject in front of the Tobii T60 Eye Example of a heatmap: The red areas show
Tracker. particularly high focus of attention.

W
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®
Leading Eye Tracking technology
 Media research

In the case of this particular ad design, the ads is just under 60 percent – and is, as The perception process is particularly well

focus of attention is on the woman’s face
and the headline. Areas in the ad, which are
fixated on longer are colored more inten-
sively.
Tobii Studio’s area of interest (AOI) tool was
used to quantify perception data on a higher
level. Areas in ads that displayed the brand
name were defined as “areas of interest” in
order to determine the extent of brand name
perception in every ad design.
Recall
expected, above the average for unaided
recollection.
Ads in which the brand name was fixated for
the first time within the first two seconds
show a considerably higher performance
rate in terms of recollection. The correlation
between the “time to first fixation” and
“recall” is highly significant (Pearson’s R =
-0.70 for the unaided as well as for the aided
recall).
The relationship between eye movements
and the impact on recollection is illustrated
by the following graph. It shows that the
effectiveness of advertising can be signifi-
cantly increased if the ad is designed
properly and the brand strategically placed.
Time to first fixation
(Light blue = Unaided; Dark blue = Aided)
100.0
88.2
80.0
59.3
Tobii_CustomerCase_Ravensbourg_131109_USENG
illustrated in the reversed heatmap of a
rather poorly recollected ad (design 1 =
yoghurt brand) on the one hand, and a well
recollected brand (design 2 = beer brand)
on the other hand. The darkened areas are
those which were poorly perceived and not
perceived at all, respectively. The heatmaps
were created at different intervals to
demonstrate the differences in the percep-
tion process.
In design 1, the brand name is first perceived
after two seconds, whereas in design 2 the
product name is fixated within the first half
second. Though the test subjects can recall
the woman (mainly the face) and the
headline in the first ad, very few are able to
match the correct brand name to the ad
design during subsequent questioning. In
design 2, the brand name is placed in such a
way that it is perceived very quickly and also
recalled very well.

60.0 50.9
Example of an AOI: The area of interest was
determined using the AOI tool and marked 40.0
24.5
with a red square. 20.0

0.0
0-5 sec (all designs n=20) <2 sec (n=5)
There are different indicators of attention for
AOIs, one of which is the “time to first
fixation”. This indicator is defined as the time Design 1.
in seconds from the moment the stimulus
was first shown until the start of the first
fixation within an AOI.

Individual data regarding the attention of

each test subject per ad can be determined
and compared with the individual recollec-
tion.

The results
The results show that it takes an average of
2.5 seconds for a test subject to perceive Design 2.
the brand name for the first time.

Approximately one-quarter of all test

subjects can recall the advertised products
unaided. The average performance of aided
recollection for all test subjects and for all

“Flash phase” (<0.5 Sec.) Phase from 0.5-2 Seconds. Phase from 2-5 Seconds.

W
“Flash phase”
Leading Eye Tracking technology
Phase from Phase from 2-5
©TOBII®. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
 Media research

Why eye tracking? About the researchers

The design of an ad determines how it is per- In cooperation with well-known companies,

Tobii_Customercase _Ad testing_RavensburgCase_291009_ Web

ceived and therefore influences recollection
of the ad content. A cleverly designed ad
can enhance recollection considerably.
Investments in advertising pretests really
pay off, especially when compared with the
costs of ad placement. Although the “golden
rules” for eye-marketing and ad design
already exist, ads should be submitted for
pretests before launching a broad advertise-
ment campaign – particularly when a client
needs to choose between several ad
designs and cannot make up his mind. Eye
tracking can contribute considerably to
optimizing the ad’s impact.
Why Tobii?
Tobii offers advanced hardware and
software solutions as well as excellent
service. The Tobii Studio software collects
eye movement data in real-time and provides
comprehensive analysis tools. The devices
are applicable both for the academic and the
commercial realm.
the Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative
State University trains future specialists and
executives. The university is the first of its
kind in Germany and is also academically
fully approved and accredited. The course
“Media and Communications Management”
trains marketing and communications
professionals. Advertisement impact
research plays an integral part in the course
curriculum. In particular, application-orient-
ed research questions, which are of
fundamental interest to the advertising
industry, are explored. The Steinbeis
Research Center for “Advertising and
Communications” is also resident at the
university and conducts individual ad impact
and usability studies commissioned by
clients.
www.werbungundkommunikation.de
(Means “advertising and communications”.)

“It was important for us to have a natural test

setting where the test subjects aren’t
distracted by any visible technical compo-
nents. We chose the Tobii Eye Tracker,
which has a camera built into the TFT screen
and therefore doesn’t distract the user from
the stimuli. The devices are also easily set up
and mobile so that the test can be carried
out without great effort at the client’s
premises”, says Professor Ottler.

To find out how

Eye Tracking
can improve your
research, please visit
www.tobii.com or contact
one of our offices.

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