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Running Over Virtual Pedestrians Helps In-Game Ad Recall
neuroworld writes to point out a study which found a correlation between in-game violence and a player's ability to recall advertisements seen while playing. The test subjects were given two versions of a driving game, which included "unobtrusive" billboard ads, and their eye movements were recorded by a camera. One version had players hitting targets for points, and the other version had them running down pedestrians. "[The researchers] found ads displayed along with violent scenes to be more memorable to players than those shown with nonviolent content, even though players spent less time looking at them. The results are contrary to expectations stemming from research on television, where violence has been shown to decrease attention to advertisements."
And I've been drinking Coca-Cola ever since I hit that hunderd an' eleven year old lady in Grand Theft Auto VI: The Ballad of Brawndo's Stories and her blood spilt across the sidewalk to make the Coca-Cola logo. Now ever time I crack open a can of Coca-Cola, it feels like someone's spine in my hands snapping like celery. And when I take that first drink of blood ... er ... Coca-Cola, it's like I'm drinking that old lady's life essence again.
My work here is dung.
Quick, hide this research as fast as you can. Otherwise the next Bioshock will have you kill little sisters to various advertising jingles. I can just see the little girl in my hands, begging for mercy while in the background you hear, "J. E. L. L. O, Its Alive!" In Wait...that might actually work.
So, a real Death Race 2000 ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072856 ) would have helped Burma Shave ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burma-Shave)
What about putting the advertisements on the pedestrians' shirts? Then we might remember them better AND be able to run down walking advertisements with satisfyingly bloody results!
"In the Shirt Test, the test subjects did not fare quite so well in the game portion of the test, score-wise. What they seemed to prefer to do is hit pedestrians with advertisements on their shirts, back over them, and repeat the process until either the pedestrian was removed from the game or time ran out. However, the subjects DID remember the ads better, if not only in the sense of, as one subject put it, the satisfaction of hitting 'that stupid-looking tool with the Coca-Cola shirt on'. Further research is needed. Here's our grant application."
Demanding constant attention will only lead to attention.
There have been so many references to Coke on this page that I'm thirsty. Do discussions about violence in games count towards effective advertising, too?