A kick in the teeth gets attention

I have reposted this because the subject is still directly relevant to today's advertising. Assuming that marketing content is viewable, it must earn attention and create brand-linked memories if it is to have any effect on future behavior. But how much attention is necessary for advertising to have an effect is a matter for debate.

An interesting post appeared on Adliterate recently, titled: "A kick in the teeth for LIP".

This got my attention because a couple of years ago Erik du Plessis and I were involved in running debate in Admap on whether or not Low Involvement Processing (LIP) is an effective way to grow brand equity and sales. The fact that the title got my attention reflects the essence of this debate about how advertising works.

The LIP model was first articulated by Robert Heath in his monograph, "The Hidden Power of Advertising". Central to the concept of LIP is that the essence of advertising communication can be acquired passively, without the viewer paying active attention. The LIP model concludes that learning takes place implicitly every time an ad is seen. Erik and I did not challenge this conclusion but did point out that a) this is likely to be an inefficient way to generate an advertising effect compared to an ad which is processed with high involvement (HIP), and b) LIP probably only works when the impression delivered by the ad is consonant with existing brand impressions.

Robert was less than enthused by our paper and attacked our interpretation in his own paper but did admit that "It therefore stands to reason that ads that exploit both HIP and LIP, and work at both high and low (and no) attention, are going to be most effective." Erik and I replied proposing that HIP and LIP represent either end of a continuum of response to advertising and concluding, "what is clear from Heath's review is that ads which might only work by LIP will require significant and continued media investment to achieve their full effect." At this point Admap's editor stepped in with the pithy comment, "This debate is now over."

Well, as baseball player and manager Yogi Berra said, "It's not over till it's over." The LIP monograph was published in 2001 and the world has moved on since. Our understanding of how the brain works, how emotion guides attention, and how we process memories and associations has evolved a lot since then. The recent Adliterate post by Richard reviews the latest conclusions drawn from new research by Graham Page and Jane Raymond and concludes that:

"If people do not actively attend to a piece of communication then it is left either passively ignored or actively ignored. In the first case LIP may help us but the effects will be subtle and short-lived. While if it is actively ignored you are just storing up problems for the future."

Richard states up front that he believes in active engagement to persuade people, so he is hardly an impartial bystander. He says, "I think that if you set out to persuade people of your brands qualities and point of view you ought to do just that, persuade them. This requires active engagement from people towards the brand or communication, not just their passive attention." I agree. It does not matter whether the communication is explicit or implicit, what matters is that people attend to the ad so that the memories and associations are processed into long-term memory.

No doubt the fight over HIP and LIP will continue as new research provides evidence to support the case for either side, but the fact that I felt compelled to read the "A kick in the teeth for LIP" post, and the fact that Richard felt Graham and Jane's findings support his viewpoint, highlight that attention and interpretation of an event are subject to all our existing memories and associations with it. If you want to change someone's mind you must overcome those existing associations.

If the title of Richard's post had been "A kick in the teeth" I doubt I would have paid attention to the post. The fact that it referenced "LIP", however, triggered my attention. That attention insured that I clicked on the link and read the post. Thinking about it later I realize that all my memories and feelings associated with the subject ensured my attention even though they did not consciously surface at the time: concern that LIP may be used to justify ineffective advertising, enjoyment from working with Erik to craft our paper, irritation at being quoted out of context. As Graham and Jane would probably say, my "representation" of LIP is strong and clear, guaranteeing attention. This is exactly the response we want brands to create with their consumers, although it would be far better if the associations were also unequivocally positive.

Richard's post also shows the power of communication when it confirms or fits a person's existing views or beliefs. He readily accepts the point of view put forward by "the nice people at Millward Brown" because they confirm points that he already believes. Graham and Jane would probably say that the communication is refreshing and strengthening his representations of the issue.

Given his comments, do you think we could change Richard's mind about LIP being a "cop out"?

Would it be possible to do so simply on the basis of exposure to an ad to which he paid no attention? Could we overcome his skepticism with a presentation that reviewed all the evidence to support the case for LIP? I doubt it. Instead, I think we would have to create a compelling (and ideally personal experience) that demonstrated that such exposure could have a lasting effect on peoples' affinity with a brand.

And I think that analogy demonstrates the essential problem with LIP. In the face of pre-existing memories of experience with the brand – created by using it, seeing other people use it, seeing it in the media, hearing people talk about it – can repeated exposure to an ad with low or no attention really be expected to change peoples' attitudes and beliefs?

If it can, I have yet to see compelling proof. But then, I am a victim of my own experience, aren't I?

So, what do you think? Is LIP still hip or are new findings confirming HIP is where it's at?