Lesson Nine: Advertising Science, Part II: The Physiology of Readers

There is only one person who matters to a printed page, and that person solely determines the success or failure of your message. He is the reader.

Without the reader you are left with unread advertising, unsold products, and unused services. It’s a dismal world without him.

But the reader is fickle and difficult to master. Here is what you are up against: 62% of them require some kind of vision correction; 90% of those reading a newspaper claim to only look and read specific items, ignoring the rest; and you can fairly assume that even if you’ve done your job well, only 4–6% of them reading any given publication will actually take the time to read what you have to say.

So given the mighty importance of the reader and the difficulty of getting him to cooperate, it bears out that you have a responsibility to understand his unique world—the physics and physiology that control how he reads.

I would like to share with you some secrets of this world.

The job of your ad, or brochure, or article, or newsletter is to keep the reader’s attention for as long as possible. The more of their attention you retain, the more you communicate, and the more that reader is persuaded to buy what you are selling. Ideas, product or services, it doesn’t matter.

You will be aided in this goal by an understanding of The Gutenberg Rule, which dictates that there are four quadrants on a page: The Primary Optical Area (POA), top left; the Terminal Area, bottom right; the Strong Fallow Area, top right; and the Weak Fallow Area, bottom left. The reader’s eye enters the page at the Primary Optical Area, top left, scans down, following the most direct route to the Terminal Anchor, bottom right, and exits the page. The downward tendancy of the eye is called “Reader Gravity”.

Scan through a typical page from a newspaper from top to bottom, and you’ll notice an easy flow from article to article to advertisement.Then try to read against “gravity” by scanning from the bottom up. You’ll notice it requires more mental energy to synthesize the information. Making a reader work to understand you is a sure formula for losing his
attention.

The POA on a neutral page is top left. However, place a large photograph of a puppy in the center of your layout and you will change the POA. The eye enters at the most dominant element on a page and moves promptly to the Terminal Anchor and off the page. Everything above that photo will be missed because the eye naturally moves downward, pulled by reader gravity.

This is a subconscious process and research has shown that the eye takes its cue from a very specific logical sequence moving from most dominant element to least. Each layout is a complete system, and those that give the reader a sense of completion—that he has followed a logical process to a conclusion—will reap the highest reward. Master the reader and you win his most valuable asset—his attention.



Principles of Persuassion by Shane Spark