Influence of print advertising layout complexity on visual attention

In the contemporary overcrowded market there is a high competition for capturing consumers’ attention. Few decades ago attracting consumers’ visual attention was easier; however, modern consumers become advertising-resistant. Moreover, people even tend to ignore ads before seeing them. Such advertising resistance leads to a situation when the creativity becomes important. As creativity in advertising has many aspects, we considered the advertising complexity as one of them. The aim of the research is to determine the influence of the complexity of print advertising on visual attention. Three objectives are set to reach the aim: (1) to determine the theoretical criteria of advertising complexity; (2) to select sample advertisements meeting each selected criterion; (3) to provide the eye-tracking experiment with the chosen advertisements. The research reveals that advertising complexity has a positive influence on consumers’ visual attention to the advertisement, but negative influence on consumers’ visual attention to the brand presented in the advertisement. The research enables the eye-tracking-based determination of the best suitable level of advertising complexity to attract visual attention. The analysis of experiment participants’ number of eye fixations and mean viewing time enables the determination of guidelines for advertising creation.