PurposeIn recent years, neurophysiological tools have been vastly applied in sport marketing research. Eye tracking, a pervasive sensor technology, has received a growing interest to examine the effects of advertising through sport on viewer attention. While there is a plethora of evidence in advertising that supports the positive effects of various advertising types and locations on viewer attention in various sport contexts, little is known about the role of a prosocial overlay ad on viewer attention when watching televised football matches. Therefore, this research aims to examine the differences in viewers' attention (i.e. fixation and duration) with regard to game attractiveness and colors of the prosocial message during televised football matches.Design/methodology/approachTo identify the research gap, the authors first reviewed the relevant sport marketing and neuroscience research on advertising effectiveness. The authors selected a prosocial message displayed. Adopting an experimental research design and using eye tracking, this study examined the impacts of game attractiveness and colors of message on viewer attention to the prosocial message displayed on an overlay advertisement during a football match.FindingsThe authors found that the colors of prosocial messages and game attractiveness had significant effects on viewer attention to the prosocial message.Originality/valueIn this study, the authors sought to add advertisement color, as well as game attractiveness, to the extant knowledge in marketing literature as effective advertising factors in capturing viewers' attention. These variables can offer marketers new insights in designing effective advertisements for the context of televised sports events in a specialized field.

Objective: The objective of this study is to quantitatively measure the role of spectators’ gender in the intensity of their attention to advertising during a football match. Subsequently, it aims to answer the question: Does gender affect attention to advertising? Methods: Adopted a semi-experimental research design to collect data on viewers' attention to advertisements using eye tracking. In addition, a mixed between-within ANOVA and t-test were conducted to test the research hypotheses. Results: The research findings showed that viewer gender significantly affected the attention to the ads. In fact, in this research, women paid more attention to advertisements while watching football than men. Conclusion: While there is a plethora of evidence in advertising that supports the positive effects of various advertising types and locations on viewer attention, little is known about the role of gender differences on viewer attention when watching a football match on TV. This study contributes to the existing knowledge in advertising research by offering a series of research agendas on the key indicators of advertising effectiveness, especially consumer attention. More specifically, the study seeks to improve the understanding of advertising effectiveness by measuring consumers' neurophysiological responses to advertising messages.