The Effect of Ad Content on Subjects' Attention: An Alpha Band Power Study

Abstract

Advertising will be useless if they fail to attract the attention of the audience.The purpose of this s tudy was to inves tigate the changes in the frontal and prefrontal area in connection with the power of the alpha band while watching commercial advertisement. Materials and Methods:The research design was semi experimental and 30 participants (15 men and 15 women) watched two advertises (sports and non-sports). In this research, the Neuro Guide software was used to convert electro-encephalographic data to quantitative data. Results: The results of the s tudy showed that alpha power decreased in mos t of the channels among all individuals during watching the sports advertisements. This decrease was not observed when watching non-sports advertisements. This difference was also examined in terms of gender effect and the results showed that there was no significant difference between male and female. Conclusion: Our data sugges ted that the use of sport elements may enhance attention toward advertisement and lead to a long-las ting and efficacious memory retention.