Purpose

This study aims to explore whether creativity can overcome banner blindness in the viewing of web pages and demonstrate how visual saliency and banner-page congruity constitute the boundary conditions for creativity to improve memory for banner ads.

Design/methodology/approach

Three studies were conducted to understand the influence of advertising creativity and banner blindness on recognition of banner ads, which were assessed using questionnaires and bias adjustment. The roles of online user tasks (goal-directed vs free-viewing), visual saliency (high vs low) and banner-page congruity (congruent vs incongruent) were considered.

Findings

The findings suggest that creativity alone is not sufficient to overcome the banner blindness phenomenon. Specifically, in goal-directed tasks, the effect of creativity on recognition of banner ads is dependent on banner ads’ visual saliency and banner-page congruity. Creative banners are high on visual saliency, and banner-page congruity yields higher recognition rates.

Practical implications

Creativity matters for attracting consumer attention. And in a web page context, where banner blindness prevails, the design of banners becomes even more important in this respect. Given the prominence of banners in online marketing, it is also necessary to tap the potential of creativity of banner ads.

Originality/value

First, focusing on how creativity influences memory for banner ads across distinct online user tasks not just provides promising theoretical insight on the tackling of banner blindness but also enriches research on advertising creativity. Second, contrary to the popular belief of extant literature, the findings suggest that, in a web page context, improvement in memory for banner ads via creativity is subject to certain boundary conditions. Third, a computational neuroscience software program was used in this study to assess the visual saliency of banner ads, whereas signal detection theory was used for adjustment of recognition scores. This interdisciplinary examination combining the two perspectives sheds new light on online advertising research.

中文翻译：

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如何克服在线横幅盲点？创造力的影响研究

目的

本研究旨在探索创造力是否可以克服浏览网页时的横幅盲点，并展示视觉显着性和横幅页面一致性如何构成创造力的边界条件，以提高横幅广告的记忆力。

设计/方法/方法

进行了三项研究，以了解广告创意和横幅盲目性对横幅广告识别的影响，并使用问卷和偏差调整进行评估。考虑了在线用户任务（目标导向与自由查看）、视觉显着性（高与低）和横幅页面一致性（一致与不一致）的作用。

发现

研究结果表明，仅靠创造力并不足以克服横幅失明现象。具体来说，在目标导向的任务中，创造力对横幅广告识别的影响取决于横幅广告的视觉显着性和横幅页面的一致性。创意横幅的视觉显着性很高，横幅页面的一致性会产生更高的识别率。

实际影响

创意对于吸引消费者的注意力很重要。而在横幅盲目盛行的网页环境中，横幅的设计在这方面变得更加重要。鉴于横幅广告在网络营销中的突出地位，也有必要挖掘横幅广告的创意潜力。

原创性/价值

首先，关注创造力如何影响不同在线用户任务中横幅广告的记忆，不仅为解决横幅盲点问题提供了有前景的理论见解，而且丰富了对广告创意的研究。其次，与现有文献的普遍看法相反，研究结果表明，在网页上下文中，通过创造力改善横幅广告的记忆受到某些边界条件的影响。第三，本研究使用计算神经科学软件程序来评估横幅广告的视觉显着性，而信号检测理论用于调整识别分数。这种结合这两种观点的跨学科研究为在线广告研究提供了新的视角。