Visual attention to the Logos of Popular and Unknown Brands: An Eye-tracking Study during Decision-making

Abstract

A logo epitomizes a brand and depicts the picture of a product; consequently, attention, as an initial step of the AIDA model, to the logo is a good-looking index to survey the cognitive processing during consumers’ decision-making. Eye tracker extracts the visual attention data. For these reasons and appreciated from fixation duration, in the present study, the process of visual attention to the logo of a brand during decision-making was studied. To analyze the effects of the popularity of a brand on consumers’ decision-making, visual attention of 53 undergraduate students was studied. The brands were selected from two categories of beverages: soft drinks and non-alcoholic beers. Prior to the test, the participants had declared their favorite categories. The results showed that 75% of the participants selected a popular brand of their unfavorite categories. On the other hand, the difference of fixation duration between logos of popular and unknown brands did not directly relate to the choices of the participants. Therefore, these results did not correspond with the AIDA model. Additionally, cognitive processing toward the unknown brands’ logos was more than the popular brands’ logos. Moreover, the consumers who changed their decision were subjected to more cognitive processing compared to the consumers who insisted on their selection. In contrast to the AIDA model which implies that decision-making is triggered by attention, the present study indicated that decision making can also be influenced by the popularity of the brand. This can be due to optimization of the working memory usage by the brain. Finally, these results could be helpful in creating a new brand. According to the AIDA model, the more attractive logo and package of the brand, the more chance for being selected by the customers. However, our findings emphasize the importance of the popularity of the brand.

Keywords

• visual attention
• cognitive process
• fixation duration
• eye tracking
• decision- making