The (In)effectiveness of Attention Guidance Methods for Enhancing Brand Memory in 360° Video

Sensing and remembering features in visual scenes are conditioned by visual attention and methods to guide it. This should be relevant in terms of product placement, which has become an important part of incorporating brands into different mass media formats with a commercial purpose. The approach can be challenging in 360° video, where an omnidirectional view enables consumers to choose different viewing perspectives, which may result in overlooking the brands. Accordingly, attention guidance methods should be applied. This study is the first to explore diegetic guidance methods as the only appropriate guiding method for an unobtrusive and unconscious nature of product placement. To test the effectiveness of three different diegetic guiding methods, a between-subject design was employed, where the participants were assigned randomly to one of four videos with the same scene but different guiding methods. The findings show and explain the discrepancy with studies on guiding attention in other contexts, as there were no significant differences between the guiding cues according to brand recall and brand recognition. The results also indicate a significant influence of brand familiarity on brand recall in 360° video. The article concludes by providing limitations, future research directions, and recommendations for audiovisual policy.