To cut through the noise, advertisers frequently serve mobile pop-up ads customized in real time to users’ activity, physical environment or context. These may include location-based ads keyed to a consumer’s GPS data, as well as techniques such as cross-device ad targeting and programmatic advertising that makes educated guesses about consumer behavior based on a range of data points. But do these efforts actually work in environments where attention is so fragmented?
Traditional psychology would suggest no. According to the theory of dual-task interference (DTI), people perform worse when juggling multiple tasks. In essence, DTI refers to the cognitive cannibalization that occurs when people must perform two tasks at once. For consumers already juggling online and physical activities, customized online ads may constitute yet a third attentional demand, thereby potentially compounding DTI.
However, our research shows that in today’s world of “augmented reality,” things are not always so simple. For certain types of ads, in fact, a distracted consumer may be the ideal consumer.
Our forthcoming (peer-reviewed) paper in MIS Quarterly is the first to test out DTI theories with pop-up ads in a lifelike environment. We created a custom app wherein our study participants could play an anagram game on a mobile device that occasionally delivered pop-up ads. Simultaneously, they were asked to view an approximately 14-minute clip of an NFL game on TV. We informed participants—nearly 600 across the three studies—that their performance would later be evaluated both on the number of anagrams solved and on the amount of information they retained about the football game. Unbeknownst to them, they were also tested at the conclusion of each study on their recall of the ads they were shown. The results were surprising.
Rather than hurting ad recall, greater engagement with the game was positively correlated with remembering the ads. In this context, at least, people’s mental bandwidth wasn’t strictly limited; more active game-engagement seemed to produce mental energy that spilled over into noticing pop-up ads as well.
The best explanation for this seemingly counterintuitive phenomenon is what psychological researchers call automaticity. This is where the mind operates on autopilot, instead of tapping into its usual, finite capacity for processing information. Our study suggests that when people are highly focused on a “distracting” task such as playing a game on their phone while watching TV, and that task is interrupted, automaticity causes the mind to process both task and interruption as a single event.
For marketers, then, automaticity makes “distractions” such as online games, messaging apps, and YouTube videos into golden opportunities. Within these contexts, marketing messages can piggyback on existing engagement to make a lasting impression on consumers. This insight reframes how we think about multitasking and mobile advertising. Distractions don’t always divide attention—they can also create momentum that advertising can ride on.
Next, in our studies, we tried different screen configurations, including one in which all three attention-grabbers (NFL clip, anagram game and pop-up ads) were delivered via the same screen. The engagement spillover, as measured by the rate of recall for the pop-up ads among participants, was 11.4 % greater in this split-screen set-up (vs. a multiscreen setup), since participants did not have to distribute their attention between two different screens.
We posit that environments—whether virtual or physical—where stimuli are more proximate to one another are more fertile ground for interrupting pop-up ads. In our paper, we call these low-distance environments.
We also varied the types of ads shown. Participants’ recall rate for pop-ups was 29.9% higher when the ads reflected the theme of the main attraction (i.e., when they featured football players and paraphernalia), compared to random ads with no overt connection to the NFL. We concluded that congruence with the surrounding environment is conducive to effective messaging in mobile pop-up ads.
Timing was yet another significant element. When ads appeared at less pressing moments for the broader environment—in our context, that meant during a replay or announcer commentary rather than the thick of the action—recall rates went up by 12.85-16.2%.
Finally, we saw evidence that automaticity increased over time and repeated exposure to ads. That is, it took participants less time to correctly identify ads that came later in the series, especially if they had seen the same ad more than once. This finding contradicts previous studies showing that the more irrelevant content we receive, the more we tune it out. The presence of automaticity seems to reverse that rule, which hints at a “more is more” effect when it comes to interrupting pop-up ads. Past a certain threshold of repetition, of course, viewers’ tolerance is bound to wear thin—but as long as marketers tread carefully, they may find that recurring interruptions resonate more than a one-and-done.
