An Observational Approach to Evaluate the Effect of Endorser’s Gender and Gaze Direction in Attention to Advertisements

In our current competitive market, consumers encounter thousands of advertisement messages on a daily basis and consequently, as time goes by, they show apathetic behavior towards these stimuli. Hence, smart marketers need to utilize unique strategies to gain more attention and attract more consumers. Minor but targeted changes in advertising can have a major impact on its effectiveness. The assessments of these changes are important and possible through different tools. 83 students from Shahid Beheshti University participated in the study. We used an eye-tracking system to explore the effect of endorser’s gender and gaze direction on visual attention of participants to the advertisement. The results showed that the endorser’s gender and gaze direction have significant effect on the participants’ visual attention. Female endorsers attracted more attention towards the entire ads as well as the pictorial part of the ads containing images of the endorsers and the products. In contrast, male endorsers attracted more attention towards the product images. Moreover, the endorser’s gaze direction towards the slogan attracted the participants’ attention to the slogan. Using an eye-tracker, the observational approach confirms the effect of the endorser’s gender and gaze direction on the visual attention of participants to the pictorial and textual features of the advertisements. Having a female endorser congruent with the ads’ product will attract more attention to the focal point of the ad, especially when the endorser’s eye gaze is directed towards the focal point.