How to draw your consumers- attention?

What-s the best way to transfer an advertising message so it stands out from the crowd? How to bring the potential addressees to a stop and get them pay attention to it? And what's most important: how to make them keep the message in mind?

Our brain is pretty ignorant

Our brains have been programmed so they can deal with omnipresent information pollution. Processing information, that keeps rolling in, is based on a couple of procedures -the better you know the problem the more automatic your approach is. Have you ever driven a car and arrived at your doorstep while going somewhere else? This is the autopilot that takes over some of the responsibilities of the main system- taking some burden from its shoulders.

What does it have to do with information? If at the beginning of a message you find out, you know some of it, your mind switches to a standby- mode -since you already know what you-re going to hear, there-s no need to pay attention. Therefore if you intend to say something new, start with it, don-t let your information follow the scheme-, cause if that happens, no one will pay heed.

If you are to launch an appeal for curbing exhausts emission, don-t start with: - we-re an organizations taking action for better climate-. Your addressees will immediately switch into environmental blabber- mode. Try to strike with something that concerns them personally instead. Do you realize that in ten years time there won-t be any grass in your garden? Due to the greenhouse effect, which rises temperature by X degrees a year, it will be so dry nothing will grow- And so on, and so forth& Does it sound better? It surely does.

Getting of the beaten track

The same mechanism that I-ve just described can be a great tool for drawing attention. If everything sticks to the plan, your mind switches to automatic guess as to what-s going to come next- and stops working intensively. When you-re on a boring conference, you expect boring talks and you can work on low efficiency. But what-s going to happen if suddenly someone starts shouting or worse shooting. Your brain tells you: Hey& it shouldn-t be like that. Your guessing machine isn-t working any more, concentrate, pay heed to what-s going on -either you-ll learn something new, or you-ll adapt another procedure which will let you to switch to standby mode again-.

Arising interest

Have you ever heard that there are scientific theories on arising interest? I-ve just used one of them on you. It-s called information gap theory and it was developed by George Loewenstein, Psychology PhD at Carnegie Mellon University. According to it, you have to know you don-t know something to get interested in it. What-s more, the more pieces of information you have acquired the more disturbing- the remaining gap is. It-s like watching a match to the last minute though it-s highly improbable anything is going to change -the inconvenience connected with uncertainty as to the score, makes you stay with the players to the very end.

So if you want your addressees to be interested in what you-ve got to say, make them realize what they do not know. And then satisfy their curiosity.

Instead of writing: We produce the best mattresses in the USA- write: Do you know who the leading American mattress manufacturer is?

Keeping interest

Robert Cialdini, worldwide known psychologist and lecturer, was looking for a more interesting way of transferring knowledge to his students. In order to find it he decided to study popular science materials and check out what draws his attention. He found out that papers that read best are presented in the form of & riddles.

He discussed the results of his studies in an article published in Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology in 2005. The article had an intriguing title: What-s the best secret device for engaging student interest? The answer is in the title ;-).

According to Cialdini riddles engage you. They make you ask yourself questions, which nearly automatically triggers efforts to solve the problem resting on the knowledge you have. And when you have already arrived at the solution (or you can-t think it up) you are curious if you-re right (mind you, information gap). Therefore, if you want to draw your addressee into your world, to involve him, think up a riddle he would like to solve.

Thus, instead of writing:-Using energy-efficient light bulbs you can cut your energy spending by 10 percent- write-Do you know how to save money on your household expenses?

Do you know what-s your next advertisement going to look like?;)

Breaking through information pollution is the best way to your company-s success. You may have the best possible product, still it won-t sell if people don-t notice it. Bear it in mind while planning your next advertising campaign.