Hello and welcome to Future of Marketing.

Every other week, we send you the most relevant trends, resources, and
strategies in social and user-generated content (UGC) from leading marketers 
and brands around the globe. 

Did you know: the average time people spend reading a newsletter after opening it is only 51 seconds? Hope you’ll stick around a bit longer. 🙂

Today, we’re discussing attention-grabbing ads – featuring our #BrandCrush: Chanel. 💘

How Chanel captures attention

We analyzed two ads using TrueLoyal’s Attention Score heatmap technology to identify which would perform better with viewers:

Ad #1 features staged product images (with more text)
vs.
Ad #2 features hand-drawn images created
by employees’ kids (with less text)

Results:

At first glance, it may seem like ad #1 (on the left) takes the medal because there are more red spots, BUT this image actually contains too many visuals – which scatters the audience’s attention. 

The clear winner is ad #2 (on the right) – as indicated by the cognitive demand and clarity score of 43% and 83%, respectively. Whereas, ad #1 revealed a 62% on cognitive demand and a 48% clarity score. Interesting.

Three tips to optimize your content for more conversions: 

1. Add visual interest (i.e. UGC > staged photography)  
2. Reduce the time it takes to process information by removing unnecessary clutter
3. Study eye movement and attention-tracking patterns 👀

What we’re learning

According to an email subject line study by Mailchimp:

“Short and descriptive [email] subject lines consisting
of visual pizzazz with a little humor convert better.“

In social news…

• Instagram Strongholds Influencer Marketing Despite Growing Competition
• YouTube’s New Tool Lets Creators Turn Videos into Shorts 
• Pinterest Launches New Board Sticker to Help Drive More Pin Traffic
• TikTok partners with Ticketmaster for in-app ticketing purchasing options   
• BeReal and the Doomed Quest for Online Authenticity

Shameless plug 🔌

Want to learn how your visual content is perceived? Give TrueLoyal Attention Score a spin.

Was that 51 seconds?

PS. Couldn’t leave you with just one study, so here’s one of babies. 

Who doesn’t like babies? 

🙂

Directional cues in ads 

Two identical ads – with one slight difference. Notice how the baby gazes towards the copy in ad #2 and shifts the viewer’s attention towards the copy. Directional cues are just as powerful as removing clutter. 😉

Hope you enjoyed today’s Future of Marketing brief. Hit reply if there’s something you’d like to see from us in the future.

Until next time! 👋🏼