Split-Second Advertising

Neurons Inc. completed a research study for the Mobile Marketing Association to evaluate consumer’s reaction times to advertisements. Their research found that “consumers took 400 milliseconds to see and react emotionally to 67% of mobile ads tested.” (Ives, 2019) All of the brands had equal opportunities to be seen, however it was the big brands that evoked an emotional response. The majority of reactions occurred within the first second for still advertisements and 2 seconds for videos.

First impressions are just as important in mobile marketing as they are in real life. Since the majority of reactions occur within the first seconds, creating advertisements that focus on creating a strong first impression can greatly affect the ad’s viewing ratings. Viewability is a major player in where brand’s choose to buy spots for their advertisements. This makes sense due to the purpose of the advertisements being to engage a brand’s target audience.

With this information, it will not be surprising to see big brands begin shifting away from the longer advertisements that are common to find online and begin choosing to focus on shorter advertisements that last closer to 15 seconds. Since these brands are being successful in evoking responses at such a quick pace, I believe this would be a better usage of marketing resources. However, this is only referring to bigger brands. The research in this article suggests that small brands that are not as easily recognized will not have quite the same benefits as larger brands. Meaning that continuing with longer advertisements will probably be the best way for smaller brands to use their marketing dollars.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/mobile-ads-do-more-work-in-one-second-than-you-might-think-11551870001?