1. Digital advertising today focuses primarily on ensuring that an
ad is viewable and that the ad is delivered to the right audience.
But even if the ad is viewable, it must be able to elicit a positive
response from the consumer. Drawing from research in sensory,
cognitive and behavioral science, we begin to outline the
pathway that an ad must follow in order to generate a desirable
outcome. Our Perceptual Science approach creates tremendous
opportunities to improve performance by making advertising
more appealing to consumers.
Perceptual Science for
Performance Marketing
JUNE 2015

2. Moving beyond
viewability and
segmentation
Digital advertisers today – and the
majority of companies that provide
services to them – focus almost
entirely on two aspects of ads:
ensuring that an ad is seen, and
that it is seen by the right audience.
Clearly, if an ad is not visible to a
consumer, it has no value to the
advertiser who paid for that ad
impression. On the other hand, if an
ad is irrelevant to a consumer, it may
as well not have been seen at all. For
these reasons, significant effort is
spent on identifying target audiences
and ensuring that ads are delivered to
those audiences.
However, delivering a viewable ad is
not enough, even if it is delivered to
the target audience. Although the ad
may be visible on the screen, a lot
needs to happen before that light signal
generates a desirable reaction in the
consumer, such as increasing brand
awareness or leading to a purchase.
Understanding the
Perceptual Pathway
The chain of events leading from
the initial viewing of the ad to a
successful outcome, is depicted in
Figure 1 (below). We refer to this
as the Perceptual Pathway, which
consists of several stages that must
be crossed in order to achieve a
desirable response.
In order to generate a reaction, the
ad must first of be noticed. Often, we
are not even aware of images or ads
that appear alongside the content we
are reading. Next, the consumer has
to pay attention to the ad and actually
look at it. When the consumer looks
at the ad, there will be an immediate
emotional reaction that may be positive
or negative.This could be due for
example to the ad’s color, images
or animation. If the initial emotional
reaction is pleasing, the consumer will
then engage with the ad – reading the
text or watching a video, for example.
The ad’s content will then determine
whether the consumer will take a
desirable action. Is the ad’s content
relevant to the consumer? But even if it
is, will its delivery be timely? We have
all had the experience of visiting a site
and seeing a perfectly relevant ad... for
a product that we just bought.
If the ad fails to cross any of these
stages, the result will be a lost
opportunity. Even if an ad is closely
related to a product that the consumer
is intent on purchasing, not noticing it,
not paying attention to it, or disliking
it, will cause the consumer to ignore
the ad.
Delivering a
viewable ad is
not enough,
even if it is
delivered to
the target
audience.
Figure 1:The Perceptual Pathway.
Viewable
Ad
Noticed? Looked
at?
Pleasing? Relevant? Timely? Successful
Outcome
LOST OPPORTUNITY

3. From these observations, we can
conceptually organize the stages going
from an ad impression to a favorable
outcome into three broad categories -
Ad Creative, Ad Message and Audience.
The first stages depend almost
entirely on the physical characteristics
of the ad/creative. Factors such as
the ad’s position on the page, its size,
color, animation and sounds, all impact
the likelihood that the consumer will
notice or pay attention to the ad; some
of these same factors will also impact
the consumer’s initial emotional
reaction. We can think of these as
the sensory stages of the Perceptual
Pathway, where lights, sounds and
other signals are first processed by
our brains. If an ad for a cruise ship is
too small to be noticed or the colors
make it unappealing, a consumer who
may actually be interested in going on
a cruise will not “process” the ad and
the opportunity will be lost.
The middle stages also depend
on characteristics of the ad, but
characteristics that are processed by
more advanced parts of our brain:
recognizing images, reading text,
processing sounds. Does the ad include
words? Does it include images? Does
it include narration?These are what we
might refer to as the cognitive stages
of the Perceptual Pathway, where the
consumer is processing the information
contained in the ad. In these stages,
the information processing of the ad’s
content is shaped by the consumer’s
demographics and experiences.
Even if the same ad for a cruise is
noticeable and pleasant, it will be
wasted if the consumer is a
10-year old boy.
Finally, even if the consumer has
looked at an ad and processed its
content, the outcome will depend
heavily on the consumer’s context
and behaviors. We think of these
as the contextual stages of the
Perceptual Pathway. Even if the ad
is pleasant and the consumer is
an affluent individual who enjoys
traveling, the ad will be useless if that
person just returned from a week-
long Caribbean vacation.
Ad characteristics
impact performance
As mentioned at the outset, much
effort is being spent on making
sure an ad is viewable, and that
the ad is delivered to an audience
whose demographic characteristics
have been carefully targeted. In
contrast, little emphasis has been
placed on understanding how
the characteristics of the ad itself
influence the consumer’s sensations,
cognition and context.
These observations suggest that
there is an enormous opportunity to
study all the elements of an ad that
ultimately influence the consumer’s
reaction, so as to maximize the
chances that that ad will lead to a
desirable outcome.
Light Reaction was created to take
advantage of this opportunity. At
Light Reaction we are working with
leading scientists to consider all the
elements of an ad that impact how
it is perceived by the consumer. This
is what we refer to as Perceptual
Science. The collection of scientific
methodologies that study human
perception, including sensory,
cognitive and contextual processing.
Our team draws insights and
inspiration from multi-disciplinary
research efforts, and conducts
experimentation to identify specific
opportunities to improve the chances
that the ad will make it through each
of the Perceptual Pathway stages.
The result is a dramatic increase in
the probability that the light signal
contained in the ad will lead to the
right reaction.
By considering
all the elements
of perceptual
processing,
we are able to
fine-tune ads to
reflect the goals of
specific“desirable
outcomes”.
Figure 2:The stages from ad impression to outcome
LIGHT REACTION
Ad Creative:
Position, Size, Color
Ad Message:
Wording, Imagery
Audience:
Context, Behaviors

4. Bringing science to
bear in performance
marketing
There are many reasons why we
have decided to pursue these
avenues of research. For one thing,
some of the early stages – where
many of the opportunities are lost
– depend on sensory processing
that is largely homogenous across
populations. For instance, it is a
known perceptual phenomenon
that a lighter object looks larger and
closer than a darker object of exactly
the same size. This is true regardless
of gender, age, income and other
demographic markers. Hence any
discovery that improves an ad’s
physical characteristics has the
potential of being applicable across
all segments.
Second, the growing adoption of
mobile platforms means that we can
gain access to a wealth of contextual
information.This, in turn, means that by
focusing on mobile we have a chance
to improve the later stages of the
Perceptual Pathway. It is for this reason
that we are committing to a mobile-first
approach for Light Reaction.
Finally, by considering all the
elements of perceptual processing,
we are able to fine-tune ads
to reflect the goals of specific
“desirable outcomes” that may
vary dramatically for different
advertisers. For example, getting
someone to click an ad is an
immediate outcome, and the
consumer’s current state and
context will greatly influence
the effectiveness of that ad. In
comparison, getting a consumer to
visit a showroom to test drive – and
eventually purchase – a car, is a
delayed outcome that may unfold
over days or weeks. By taking into
account sensory, cognitive and
contextual factors, we can ensure
that ads are matching the time scale
of the advertiser’s desired outcome.
As we uncover more and more
facets of human perception, we
will be able to create increasingly
effective ads, maximizing the
probability that each ad will generate
the desired outcome under the
broadest possible set of conditions.
For more information, please
contact info@LightReaction.com.