The human brain needs less than half a second to engage with mobile advertising: MMA research

MMA’s Cognition Research Study finds that the time taken by the brain to cognitively process an ad is less than half a second.

The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), has launched its Neuroscience Cognition Research which establishes that the human brain needs 400 milliseconds (or 4/10th of a second or less than half a second), to engage with mobile advertising and trigger an imprint, positive or negative. This research has been done to test and assess the duration at which advertising on mobile platforms can be recognized and processed cognitively.

Ever since videos have become the preferred mode of marketing a product, there has been an increase in ads across platforms. However, owing to excessive screen time, the viewer’s attention spans have been reducing. The findings of this report will provide answers as to why there is a lack of response to an ad - consumers might be wrestling with many diversions. The report provides directives to advertisers on how to leverage specific visual elements to capture the emotional brain’s attention. It also focuses on the need to contrast ad complexity to the ad’s contextual environment.

Speaking at the launch of the research report, Rohit Dadwal, managing director, MMA - Asia Pacific, said, “The challenge of attention in advertising is not new. MMA has now brought in neuroscience to understand the human brain’s reaction to advertising because it pushes the boundaries of what eye tracking studies allowed. MMA is committed to walking the path of science in marketing for brands. This report will demonstrate to marketers that the need of the hour is to focus on developing the right creative content given that human attention is a scarce commodity.”

Here are some highlights of the Cognition Research study:

• Cognitive process of advertising is fast: The human brain needs less than half a second to engage with mobile advertising & trigger a reaction, positive or negative. More than 67 per cent of ads tested were already seen and cognitively recognized at 0.4 seconds.

• Time is Relative: Ads in a mobile feed environment get attention faster and trigger stronger cognition, compared to a desktop feed. It took 2-3 seconds for two thirds of desktop ads to be seen and cognitively recognized in comparison to mobile ads that were recognized in 0.4 seconds.

• Our Brain is faster on branding: The cognitive process is accelerated for known brands. Although all ads have the same likelihood of being seen, ’well-known’ brands stimulate a much faster cognitive and emotional process in the same time frame.

• Video engages with the emotional brain better: While static and video ads have the same likelihood of being seen, video ads are twice as likely to create emotional response; than a static ad at faster exposure speeds (less than 0.7 seconds.)

• Weak ads work fast and fail even faster: Weak ads are processed faster and create negative emotional responses in less than a second.

This cognition research is the most recent study aligned to the MMA’s research agenda in the areas of marketing measurement, organisation design, creative innovation, emerging technologies and more. Using neuroscience to understand the human brain’s reaction to advertising (actual cognitive process) is a relatively new technique in advertising. This study is focused on the ‘opportunity to see’ both in mobile and desktop.

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Prasun Basu, president – Nielsen, South Asia, said “Advertisers have always known that there is a linear relationship of time with attention and impact of an ad. To discover that exact length according to science - is less than half a second, is surely going to present a challenge to the creative and media teams. It is now time for marketers to come up with the First Second strategy for mobile marketing. It will be very interesting to see how they tackle the findings of this study and use the key takeaways to as the basis of their revised strategies.”

MMA conducted the Cognition Neuroscience Research project in collaboration with The Advertising Research Foundation (The ARF) and Neurons Inc., an applied neuroscience research company. It is mainly to understand how consumers process information in a mobile environment.