The effect of repetition in Internet banner ads and the moderating role of animation

Many advertising repetition studies have demonstrated wear-out effects, and found several moderating variables. In the context of Internet banner ads, this study examines the effects of repetition on attention, memory, and attitude, and identifies the moderating role of animation. By analyzing data on users’ actual visual attention, we found attention wear-out occurs with static but not with animated banner ads, which consequently influences the downstream effects: Compared to a static banner ad, an animated ad barely attracts consumers’ attention initially, resulting in worse memory performance and attitude in the beginning. However, with repeated brief exposures, animated banner ads eventually catch up with the static ads on memory and generate even better performance in terms of attitude. To summarize, animations signal the users the existence of ads and lead to ad avoidance behavior, but after repetitive exposures they induce positive user attitude through the mere exposure effect. Both the theoretical and practical implications are explored for using animation on the banner ads.     

The Effect of Webpage Complexity and Banner Animation on Banner Effectiveness in a Free Browsing Task

The effectiveness of banner advertisements has gained considerable attention among academics and practitioners. Despite the research progress in investigating the effect of banner properties (e.g., animation and location) on user perception and behavior, there is still a very limited understanding of how the properties of a banner and the surroundings of a website on which a banner is displayed can jointly influence its effectiveness. This study used eye-tracking technology to investigate the impact of banner animation and webpage complexity on users’ attention and memory performance. The results show that, during a free browsing task, an animated banner can attract earlier, greater, and more frequent attention from users and lead to better memory performance than a static one. Similarly, a banner on a low-complexity webpage also attracts earlier and more frequent attention among users and results in better memory performance than that on a high-complexity webpage. One implication is that an animated banner or a banner on a low-complexity webpage can provide a promising means of attracting users’ attention and enhancing their memory of the banners. Moreover, this study finds an interaction effect between banner animation and webpage complexity on the time to ?rst ?xation on a banner, but not on the total numbers or duration of fixations on a banner, or users’ memory performance. The finding highlights that an animated banner on a low-complexity website can be the most effective means to shorten the time to first fixation and quickly attract users’ attention. However, it cannot be deemed the most effective in generating greater and more frequent fixations on a banner, or leading to superior user memory performance.     

Preattentive processing of banner advertisements: The role of modality,location, and interference

This paper deals with the preattentive processing of banner advertisements under competitive interference conditions. In the absence of competitive interference, our experimental results were consistent with hemispheric lateralization: pictorial banner ads were evaluated more positively when positioned on the left (vs. right) side of a webpage, whereas the opposite pattern was observed for verbal banner ads. In contrast, this interaction disappeared in the presence of competitive interference. Specifically, verbal banner ads received more positive evaluations than pictorial ads when they featured products from the same category. In addition, banner ads were more liked when positioned on the left (vs. right) side when they were of the same ad modality.     

The impacts of banner format and animation speed on banner effectiveness: Evidence from eye movements

Given that banner ad investment is huge and keeps increasing, the effectiveness of banners is important for advertising practitioners and is worth attention from academics. Banner properties (e.g. format and animation) may influence the overall effectiveness of banners. However, research on how banner formats (e.g. location and orientation) affect banner effectiveness is still in its early stage and studies on how animation influences banner effectiveness have also found controversial results. By conducting an experiment using eye-tracking technology, this study investigated the impacts of banner properties, especially animation speed and format, on users' attention, recall, and attitudes towards banners. In terms of attention, both the main effects and the interaction effect were significant and the patterns varied across time. However, no significant effects were found on recall and attitudes.     

Attention to eSports advertisement: effects of ad animation and in-game dynamics on viewers’ visual attention

ABSTRACT

ESports refers to professional video gaming that is typically broadcasted with a live commentary on TV or the Internet. Despite the rapid growth of eSports industry and its potential for a valuable advertising platform, there has not been much discussion about effective advertising strategies for the placement of virtual ads in eSports. Based on previous research, one advertisement factor (i.e. ad animation) and one in-game factor (i.e. in-game dynamics) are identified and tested in an experiment (N?=?116) with a 2 (ad animation: static vs. animated ads)?×?2 (in-game dynamics: battle vs. non-battle scenes) mixed design. The results show that both ad animation and in-game dynamics have a significant impact on viewers’ visual attention, in terms of fixation count and duration measured by an eye-tracking device. The results also show a significant interaction in which the impact of ad animation on fixation duration is more magnified when in-game play is less busy (i.e. non-battle scenes), compared to when it is busy (i.e. battle scenes). Theoretical implications based on the limited-capacity model, as well as practical implications for practitioners are discussed.     

The impacts of banner location,banner content and navigation style on banner recognition

This study is an attempt to examine factors that might impact banner recognition. These factors include banner location, banner content and navigation style. Via an experimental design conducted on a sample of 90 students, we manipulate these factors over several levels. Our key finding is that banner recognition is affected by the interaction of banner content and navigation style. In particular, as far as aimless browsing participants were concerned, they recognized the banner ad with a URL address significantly better than the one with some service information as well as the URL address. However, for goal-directed search participants, there was no significant difference among the three banner content types. The results also indicated that goal-directed search participants had higher recognition scores than aimless browsing subjects only when the banner ad with some service information and URL address was used. Managerial implications of these results are discussed and future research avenues are proposed.     

Retain viewer’s attention on banner ad by manipulating information type of the content

The influence of phenomenon like Banner blindness and Habituation has weakened researchers’ efforts to highlight the effect of adding salient visual features to ads. On the other hand, many studies discussed advertising attention on the basis of individual pages, neglecting the fact that most ads reside on one of a sequence of webpages that a viewer continuously reads. Therefore, our study discussed advertising attention from a different perspective, switching focus to the information type and their influence on attention in a sequence of webpages. This study, extended from our previous study, in which we found user attention to advertisement to drop sharply beyond the initial page, planned to investigate if it is possible to dishabituate users and enhance viewer‘s attention on banner ads by manipulating the information type of a sequence of content. We found that viewer’s attention on ads can be prolonged on subsequent pages with a rudimentary stimulus variation to content order and without changing any visual design feature of the ad itself, which is prone to the crippling effects of banner blindness and habituation, and that the image-based content inserted between pages of text-based content plays an important role in raising overall attention to advertisement.     

一种内存管理设计模式

主要阐述一种内存管理器的设计模式．包括内存管理器的创建．在内存管理器中创建—对象，释放—对象，查找—对象，在实际设计中利用这种设计模式．可以方便构建自己的内存管理器，同时也能提高整个应用程序的运行效率，屏蔽底层操作系统的内存管理差异。采用本设计模式创建的内存管理器已经在一平台无关的动画播放器库函数中使用，播放器中的一些常用图片，如图标等皆放置管理器中。播放器移植时无需改动播放器本身代码，只需利用本设计模式重新实现本内存管理器。在同一款手机上测试时发现．用本内存管理器能部分提高性能。本模式同样可以应用到整个系统中框架中，它可以有效减少系统设计的复杂度和提高整个系统的效率。     

Quantifying the indirect effects of a marketing contact

The Internet banner advertising has become an important marketing channel in recent years. There is a strong demand in the industry to quantify the expected return from a marketing contact. Contacts have both direct effects, such as a banner ad prompting the viewer to click and buy, and indirect effects, such as building awareness so that future exposures are more likely to result in a sale. While it is usually straightforward to track and model direct effects, models that fail to account for indirect effects produce inaccurate estimates of the contact value and allocate marketing resources inefficiently. Our research is based on a relational database for banner ads from a major American internet service provider, which records the complete information about the exposures, the clicks and the transactions. The indirect effect of marketing contacts is modeled with a decaying function of the time since the prospect gets into the system. Discrete survival analysis is used to estimate the marginal effects of each additional exposure. The approach is illustrated with a pedagogical example based on the estimates from the internet banner ad model.     

The impact of context on display ad effectiveness: Automatic attitude activation and applicability

Display and search ads are the most popular Internet ad formats. Instead of being placed on search engine result pages, display ads are placed on webpages that include more actual content. In order to improve online contextual advertising, the effects of webpage content on embedded display ads must be understood. This study investigates how viewers’ attitudes toward content and the applicability of that content to the adjacent display ads impact the effectiveness of those ads. The moderating effects of viewers’ attention and need for cognition are also examined. The experimental results show that webpage content automatically activates ad evaluations, and that this effect increases when viewers pay less attention to the ad or have a high need for cognition. If the webpage content is highly applicable to the ad, improvements are seen in the attitude toward the ad and the attitude toward the brand.     

Examining working memory load and congruency effects on affordances and conventions

Although there is a debate about whether designers should draw a distinction between perceptual affordances and cultural conventions, there are few behavioral studies. We examined the impact of working memory load and expected button-to-action mapping congruency on affordances and conventions. The findings suggest both sides of the debate are correct. Learned conventions were found to structure responses towards expected actions, just like affordances, but affordance-based interactions were not affected by memory load while convention-based actions were. Therefore, designers ought to employ perceptual affordances when possible and when not feasible they ought to reuse established conventions. Additionally, evidence is presented that violating expected affordance-based and convention-based button-to-action mappings caused a similar performance cost. We believe that after the initial learning period, conventions play a critical role in the perception of a design’s available actions just as perceptual affordances do.     

Impact of query intent and search context on clickthrough behavior in sponsored search

Implicit feedback techniques may be used for query intent detection, taking advantage of user behavior to understand their interests and preferences. In sponsored search, a primary concern is the user’s interest in purchasing or utilizing a commercial service, or what is called online commercial intent. In this paper, we develop a methodology for employing the content of search engine result pages (SERPs), along with the information obtained from query strings, to study characteristics of query intent, with a particular focus on sponsored search. Our work represents a step toward the development and evaluation of an ontology for commercial search, considering queries that reference specific products, brands, and retailers. Characteristics of query categories are studied with respect to aggregated user clickthrough behavior on advertising links. We present a model for clickthrough behavior that considers the influence of such factors as the location of ads and the rank of ads, along with query category. We evaluate our work using a large corpus of clickthrough data obtained from a major commercial search engine. In addition, the impact of query intent is studied on clickthrough rate, where a baseline model and the query intent model are compared for the purpose of calculating an expected ad clickthrough rate. Our findings suggest that query-based features, along with the content of SERPs, are effective in detecting query intent. Factors such as query category, the rank of an ad, and the total number of ads displayed on a result page relate to the context of the ad, rather than its content. We demonstrate that these context-related factors can have a major influence on expected clickthrough rate, suggesting that these factors should be taken into consideration when the performance of an ad is evaluated.     

Perceptual training for visual search

People are better at visual search than the best fully automated methods. Despite this, visual search remains a difficult perceptual task. The goal of this investigation was to experimentally test the ways in which visual search performance could be improved through two categories of training interventions: perceptual training and conceptual training. To determine the effects of each training on a later performance task, the two types of trainings were manipulated using a between-subjects design (conceptual vs. perceptual × training present vs. training absent). Perceptual training led to speed and accuracy improvements in visual search. Issues with the design and administration of the conceptual training limited conclusions on its effectiveness but provided useful lessons for conceptual training design. The results suggest that when the visual search task involves detecting heterogeneous or otherwise unpredictable stimuli, perceptual training can improve visual search performance. Similarly, careful consideration of the performance task and training design is required to evaluate the effectiveness of conceptual training.

Practitioner Summary: Visual search is a difficult, yet critical, task in industries such as baggage screening and radiology. This study investigated the effectiveness of perceptual training for visual search. The results suggest that when visual search involves detecting heterogeneous or otherwise unpredictable stimuli, perceptual training may improve the speed and accuracy of visual search.     

Lessons learned from i-mode: What makes consumers click wireless banner ads?

This paper attempts to propose a structural model that integrates various factors influencing attitude towards wireless banner ads and intention to access them. This model is applied to empirical data of Japanese mobile users sampled in the greater Tokyo area. First, structural equation modelling is used to test the baseline model. The results show that the model explains mobile users’ perceptual antecedents and consequences well, with all structural paths statistically significant. Second, in the attempt to identify different mobile user groups, a probabilistic cluster analysis is performed. This results in three-cluster groups, consisting of (1) housewives and part-timers, (2) middle-aged white-collar workers and professionals, and (3) students and “parasite singles”. Finally, multigroup analysis is used to examine whether the model operates invariantly across the three-cluster groups. The results indicate significant differences in the paths associated with consumer innovativeness and perceived entertainment between the groups. In closing, managerial implications and future research directions are discussed, while important limitations are recognised.     

Banner layout retargeting with hierarchical reinforcement learning and variational autoencoder

In many advertising areas, banners are often generated with different display sizes, so designers have to make huge efforts to retarget their designs to each size. Automating such retargeting process can greatly save time for designers and let them put creativity on new ads. This paper proposes a hierarchical reinforcement learning-based (HRL-based) method and a variational autoencoder-based (VAE-based) method by treating the automated banner retargeting problem as a layout retargeting task. The HRL and VAE models are trained separately to learn the scaling and positioning policy of the design elements from an original (base) layout. Hence, the proposed method can generate appropriate layouts for different target banner sizes. Meanwhile, evaluation metrics are proposed to assess the quality of generated layouts and are also reward conditions during the training process. To evaluate performances of the two models, SOTA methods such as Non-linear Inverse Optimization (NIO), Triangle Interpolation (TI), and Layout GAN (LGAN) are implemented and compared. Experimental results show that both HRL- and VAE-based methods retarget design layouts effectively, and the VAE model achieves better performance than the HRL model.

     

三维图形引擎中骨骼蒙皮动画的一种实现方法

提出了三维图形引擎中骨骼蒙皮动画的一种实现方法，即将现有的关节动画与单一网格动画相结合，利用骨架的继承变换和顶点混合技术使骨骼蒙皮动画平滑逼真。实验表明该方法有良好的显示效果，并具有较好的实时性，且占用的存储空间不大，能够满足当前三维图形引擎对动画技术的要求。     

Web页面信息的视觉搜索行为特征的研究

网页是非常重要的人机界面,网页信息如何有效、合理地布局以引导人们的视觉行为,进而提高视觉搜索效率是网页设计者重点考虑的问题。从认知科学角度研究人们在Web页面上进行设计视觉信息搜索时的视觉行为特性,同时探讨浮动广告对于视觉搜索行为的影响。实验结果显示:无论是否有浮动广告,Web页面周边区域的注视时间和注视次数都显著大于中心区域。实验结果表明,Web页面视觉性搜索信息时,更多地注视周边区域,呈现视觉搜索的周边特性;而浮动广告对于视觉搜索行为没有显著影响。实验结果说明:(1)从视觉搜索角度来看,对于具有超级链接性质的标题信息,放置在周边区域比在中心区域更有利于人们的视觉搜索行为;(2)浮动广告的广告效应不明显。     

三维图形引擎中骨骼蒙皮动画的一种实现方法*

提出了三维图形引擎中骨骼蒙皮动画的一种实现方法,即将现有的关节动画与单一网格动画相结合,利用骨架的继承变换和顶点混合技术使骨骼蒙皮动画平滑逼真。实验表明该方法有良好的显示效果,并具有较好的实时性,且占用的存储空间不大,能够满足当前三维图形引擎对动画技术的要求。     

基于负载增量动态反馈的动漫渲染机制研究

随着计算机软硬件技术的快速发展,近年来动画技术也得到了迅猛发展。文章在分析了集群节点性能值及负载量的计算方法基础上,通过融合了CPU、内存利用率以及I/O通讯速率等相关参数,提出了基于负载增量动态反馈的动漫渲染机制,系统上线后的运营状况表明,该机制结合集群节点的整体性能实现了面向渲染计算的负载均衡调度,提高了动画制作的效率。     

The Impact of Advertising Location and User Task on the Emergence of Banner Ad Blindness: An Eye-Tracking Study

The purpose of this study is to explore the emergence of ad banner blindness in the viewing of e-commerce home pages. Building on the literature on inattention blindness and banner blindness, this article assessed the gaze path of users in goal-directed and free-viewing tasks when viewing pages with advertising banners on the right side of the page and on the top of the page above the main navigation menu. The hypotheses are tested using an analysis of variance. Using an eye-tracking methodology, the results identify significant differences in visual attention for banner ad location and for task type. Banner blindness is strongest for advertising banners on the right side of the page and for goal-directed tasks. Neither participants’ ratings of page visual appeal or of page familiarity could explain the findings. The study contributes to the existing literature by resolving some of the cognitive factors that lead to banner blindness and supplementing previous research that focused on relevant perceptual factors.