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A Lab Study

How people process radio advertisements

A study conducted here at IU

• Providing information of interest to creatives

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Do the words you choose as a copywriter

make that big a deal?

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People Have Better Memory for Things that are Exciting/Arousing

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Do the words you choose as a copywriter

make that big a deal?

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An experiment that was conducted in two phases

Phase 1: Measuring how people’s skin conductance reacts to radio ads

• Nike Women’s Shoes• Fire Ants Pesticide• Local Motorcycle Expo• Staples Office Supplies• Wolfgang Puck Frozen Pizza• Highway Dept. Dump Trucks• Snowboard Equipment• Café Cooking Positions• Women’s Maternity Hospital

Arousal Data Collection

• Those nine ads re-recorded by non-professional announcers without music, SFXs, other professional sounding stuff…only words

• 55 undergrads listened and had their physiology measured

Phase 2: Measuring how PREDICTBLE the words were in the radio copy of each ad

• Nike Women’s Shoes• Fire Ants Pesticide• Local Motorcycle Expo• Staples Office Supplies• Wolfgang Puck Frozen Pizza• Highway Dept. Dump Trucks• Snowboard Equipment• Café Cooking Positions• Women’s Maternity Hospital

Phase 2 was done with a research technique called a Cloze Procedure

Foreign leaders, foreign cheeses, which can you name more of? When playing with your food, do you ever let it win? Are you really into food? If the answer is yes, would you like a job at the new Market? Would you like to attend cooking classes for free…

Phase 2 was done with a research technique called a Cloze Procedure

Foreign leaders, foreign _____________, which can you name more of? When _____________ with your food, do you ever let _____________ win? Are you really into food? If _____________ answer is yes, would you like a _____________ at the _____________ Market? Would you like ____________ attend.

Phase 2 was done with a research technique called a Cloze Procedure

Foreign leaders, _____________ cheeses, which can you name more of? When playing _____________ your food, do you ever let it _____________ ? Are you really into food? If the _____________ is yes, would you like a job _____________ the new Market? Would you like to attend .

Phase 2 was done with a research technique called a Cloze Procedure

Foreign leaders, foreign _____________, which can you name more of? When _____________ with your food, do you ever let _____________ win? Are you really into food? If _____________ answer is yes, would you like a _____________ at the _____________ Market? Would you like ____________ attend.

Excerpt from Ad-1 Cloze Procedure Instrument

Foreign leaders, foreign cheeses_(H = 2.20), which can you name more of? When playing_(H = 2.30) with your food, do you ever let __it_(H=2.08)___ win? Are you really into food? If ___the_(H=2.15)___ answer is yes, would you like a ___job_(H=2.78)___ at the new Market? Would you like ___to__(H=0.34)___ attend. . .

The Higher the H-Score, the less predictable the word was in the ad copy

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-0.15

-0.1

-0.05

0

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.0000 1.0000 2.0000 3.0000 4.0000

Content Word Entropy

SCL Change

H-Score increases Palm

Sw

eat a

fter

the

wor

d in

crea

ses

So, the result of the first experiment suggests

• Using creative/less-predictable words in ad copy leads to increased excitement while listening

• Exciting things tend to be remembered better…

• So, creatives should choose words carefully…every one matters. 17

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There will be at least 2 questions from this lecture on the final exam