Using Curiosity In Advertising

We are painfully aware that we are bombarded with advertisements in every part of life. At a movie we see ads for more movies. TV shows get shorter as ads get longer. Along the street are billboards and shop signs. Newspapers and magazines are filled with appeals to get our money. All this is a challenge to the advertisers for they must come up with a way to get over the mental block set up by consumers for self-protection. How can you get others to notice your ad among the thousands of others? One effective way of doing this is through building curiosity with sights and sounds. Sounds often involve music. Many TV ads include some type of mood setting designed to make you at least watch the ad. Other types of sounds also build curiosity and attract attention. The Superman serials on TV in the 50's were popular with kids partly because of the air sound as the hero landed or took off. Curiosity is also built through the visual. A blanket over the newest model of a car makes consumers wonder what it will look like. Women in general sell products better than men in ads. A collage of movie clips are used in trailers to stimulate the imagination and make people want to see the whole thing. The double edged sword of both sound and sight will help raise an ad from the ignored to the noticed. By using both the ear gate and eye gate attention is more likely gained. Yet, if everyone does this, then your ad will remain indistinct. One form of advertising is unique in this regard. This method is called banner ads. A large billboard or long banner is pulled behind a small airplane over a large group of people. Since this is the only ad visible at the time, it is sure that there is no competition for attention. Imagine you are sitting on a beach, enjoying the sun when in the distance you hear the drone of an airplane. You have time and interest so you look up to check it out. Coming toward you is a single engine plane pulling a banner with a message written on it. Your curiosity rises. What does it say? You watch with anticipation until you can read the message and you probably do this several times in the 17 seconds it passes. The plane disappears but in a few minutes it passes by again and you read it a second time. By the third time this happens you have the message memorized and after that, the sound of the plane along causes you to recite the message in your mind. The advertiser has reached his goal. He has built your curiosity, used sights and sounds to present you the message, and repeated it without competition for attention until it was fixed in your memory. And no competitors could get a word in edgewise during that time. If his product or service is of use to you, it is pretty sure that his name will be your first choice.