ABSTRACT
The reason unexpected things attract attention is that people are accustomed to experiencing things in certain ways and when there is a departure from the norm, interest is aroused. Picture size is especially important for low-involvement transformational advertising where traditionally the picture is the most important element of the execution. The length of commercials is directly related to attention. The longer the commercial, the greater the attention. The number of cuts in a commercial does seem to affect attention, even though as the number of cuts rises above the average of 13 per 30-second commercial, the level of arousal does increase. The key to holding attention with television commercials is a function of the pattern or structure of the execution. Communication for informationally driven commercials should use a two-peaked pattern where the category need is presented first, the brand is identified in between and the benefit provided is in the second peak.
