Why Do Certain Ad Units Work So Well on Our Brains? Psychology of the interstitial

The mobile advertising ecosystem is exploding. Global mobile ad spend is expected to exceed $45 billion in 2015, according to eMarketer. A major reason for the increase is the development of new ad units that organically appear within content, spurred by technological advances as well as an increasing number of smartphones with larger screens.

This article was originally published on AdWeek.

The mobile advertising ecosystem is exploding. Global mobile ad spend is expected to exceed $45 billion in 2015, according to eMarketer. A major reason for the increase is the development of new ad units that organically appear within content, spurred by technological advances as well as an increasing number of smartphones with larger screens.

Of these new ad units, interstitials—full takeovers of the screen that come at a “logical break point,” as Google’s Jonathan Alferness memorably explained it—have been some of the most successful. They have higher rates of engagement, prompt users to view them for longer and lead to notable improvements when it comes to publisher eCPM and consumer engagement. And that’s why revenue generated from selling interstitials jumped 43 percent between the first and second quarter of 2014, according to AppFlood.

But here’s a question: Why do they work? What is it about our brains that makes interstitial ads one of the more effective forms of advertising in our cluttered world?

It’s no secret that psychology is a big factor in the success or failure of an advertisement. And the industry is always looking for ways to do better. With this in mind, we decided to explore some of the core psychological factors behind interstitial interactions with the goal of helping marketers better understand how these new units operate on users.

While interstitials are relatively new to mobile devices, they function in a similar way to the television advertisements we have watched for decades. That’s to say, they’re a known quantity that’s familiar. Like a spot during a Monday night football game or a popular sitcom, an interstitial is an ad that exists separately from the primary content being viewed. The most effective of them feel connected to the content—a bonus rather than a distraction.

Interstitials should be fast, easy and fun, functioning like a glass of seltzer after a meal of content. According to Jane E. Raymond, professor of experimental consumer psychology at the University of Wales in Bangor, “we actually process information in gulps. The brain goes out, grabs a bit of information, digests it, then grabs another bit.” While interstitials have typically appeared as pre-roll, between levels of a user’s favorite mobile game or at the end of a piece of content, new formats like our Interscroller place an interstitial seamlessly within the flow of an article allowing marketers to deliver short bits of effective messaging. These “gulps” work best with how our brains function.

A second piece of the interstitial psychology is this: While conventional wisdom frowns on distractions, it turns out that in some cases our brains actually benefit from them in order to process information. A study of 300 students ages 8 to 20 detailed in Psychology Today found that on average students focused for only three minutes at a time. They were desperate for distraction, looking for something else on which to train their attention. We all know that distraction is a reality of our modern lifestyles, and an interstitial that seamlessly and subtlety inserts itself into a user’s gaze will be a welcome break rather than a jumbled message.

The final psychological factor in favor of the interstitial is what’s known as the “isolation effect,” which states that people have superior recall for things that stand out on their own. That’s exactly the description of an interstitial, right? An ad that’s there on its own, taking up the entire screen. Better yet, adding color—bright colors for ads targeting men, softer ones for women—has been shown to improve performance, too.

Where can interstitials go from here? We suggest humor. Madelijn Strick, a psychology researcher from the Netherlands, found that when people who were primed to resist marketing experienced text that was funny, or even neutral, they were much more likely to respond positively.

To create an effective campaign, you need two things: the right message, which could come in the form of a funny spot, and an effective delivery system like the Interscroller interstitial that offers the benefits from what we know about the human mind. In other words, build an amusing interstitial and marketers might just be laughing at the increase in ROI. And you don’t need a psychology degree to know that’s a good thing.