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According to Professor Johnson, grabbing attention is fundamentally about driving contrast, as our brains are geared to notice differences in our environments. The teams behind making ads shouldn't be just copying what everyone else is doing on a given platform if they want to stand out from the rest. "What this means is that the context of the ad is huge. The context is the background; and if the ad wants to be in the foreground, it must stand out against it," he explained to Bored Panda.

"The context is two things. First, it’s the features of the channel itself. If you’re running a paid ad campaign on IG for example, there are going to be lots of highly curated images of faces, landscapes, and brunches. So the last thing you’d want to do is feature a visual ad with any of these qualities. Instead, maybe imagery that is text-based or otherwise against the grain would be the way to go," he said.

"Secondly, it's about standing out against the competitive landscape—everyone else who’s running ads on the same target market. This speaks to the content itself, as well as the brand’s ability to distinguish itself, personality-wise from that of its competitors." What this means, according to the professor, is that high-quality and creative content doesn't actually always stand out on its own merit.

"If the content can’t grab attention and stop the consumer in their tracks, they won’t have the opportunity to appreciate the ad’s quality. This is especially true in the digital environment, where the first job of any piece of content is to stop the thumb. Only after this first step can the quality of the content shine through."

It's not just contrast that human beings find attractive. Faces and text and other visual features intrinsically appeal to us. "These are special visual stimuli because they drive the brain’s automatic processing. You can’t look at a face without automatically processing its emotion, and you can’t look at a string of words without automatically processing their meaning. Because of this automaticity, these naturally drive attention and are often processed quickly within a visual scene," he told Bored Panda.

What the audience tends to notice first depends on a few things. For instance, if the words are legible enough, our brains access their meaning first and foremost, "sometimes even before simple features like color." The more legible the font, the easier it is to read, and the more readily the message is absorbed which leads to a more positive reaction by the customer. This is what's known as the fluency effect.

"All things being equal, we (at least in 'The West') also have a general heuristic for looking at any visual scene, which is to start at the upper left and then move across to the left, before scanning the entire scene. This is largely owed to the fact that most Western languages are read left to right."

When it comes to customers actually making a purchase, there are a lot of different elements at play, and it's difficult to know what's the most vital without first knowing the context. The product itself, the brand, and the advertising can all be influential and play strong roles, but this depends on the industry and the consumer decision-making process.

"In some industries—such as the luxury industry—the brand is the primary differentiator, and the product and its advertising are much less important. But in other industries, such as expensive technology, or automobiles, the utility of the product is extremely important, as is the brand reputation. Generally speaking, the more expensive the product is, the more important the features of the products are going to be. When it’s an expensive purchase, people are generally much less willing to go out on a whim simply because they like a brand or an ad," Professor Johnson said.

"And more still, advertisements can play a big role in driving purchases for certain types of products in certain contexts. Ads are particularly important when there is a very quick turnaround between seeing the ad and having the opportunity to make a purchase. This is very common in digital media. For example, if an ad for some new shoes hits you on social media, along with the opportunity to buy those shoes within just a few clicks, the ad itself can make a massive difference," he said.

Professor Johnson's book, 'Branding that Means Business' (Economist Books, Fall 2022), comes out on October 25, this year.