Moderating effects of prior brand usage on visual attention to video advertising and recall: An eye-tracking investigation

Abstract: For advertisers, attracting attention to video marketing stimuli is paramount to building and refreshing consumers’ brand memories and increasing their propensity to purchase. Research has demonstrated brand users are more likely to recall advertising, possibly suggesting a brand’s commercials draw more attention from current users than potential new customers. Testing whether prior brand usage moderates the effect of visual attention on recall, infrared eye-tracking collected fixation data from nearly 700 participants across 64 video advertising executions. The results indicate that brand users and non-users can give similar levels of visual attention: what matters is how the effectiveness of this attention differs across the two groups. Prior brand usage moderates the effect of visual attention on recall; light and non-users giving more attention have better recall. However, this effect does not exist for heavier users. These findings highlight the importance of developing advertising to gain visual attention from potential customers.