When adverts attract attention

When it comes to YouTube adverts, I have a love/hate relationship. I'm pretty sure a lot of people do. I can normally cope with them, especially the ones where you can skip it after 5 seconds, but the 30 second ones where you are unable to skip can become frustrating. Sometimes I'm not too bothered about them but other times when I eager to watch a video, I can become a little impatient.

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I have a great interest and passion in advertising and design, so I'd say I tend to watch these adverts with a slightly different eye than the majority of people. I watch how they try and lure you in - often teasing the viewers for the first 5 seconds of a video, not showing what they're advertising in order for you to continue watching and find out what they're promoting.

I'd say 70% of the time I'll have my mouse hovering over the "Skip ad" button, desperately waiting for the seconds to count down so I can watch my video. 

There are some adverts however, that lure me in and I don't skip them, as I want to find out what they're talking about it. Even as I'm watching them I'm fully aware the advert has worked as I'm sat there, continuing to watch it despite having the option to skip.


There are a range of elements can attract my attention and make me want to watch more, and I often find myself asking questions:

• music - *what song is that?* *I know that song, what advert is that for?* *I love this song*
• graphics - *I like the visual graphics, I wonder what the rest of the ad is like*
• a topic of interest e.g. make-up, skincare - *I've seen reviews on this, I wonder what they say about it* *ooh that looks good*
• a familiar voice e.g. Zoella - *what are they talking about?*

You can probably see from just these handful of questions that there are many ways adverts can grab your attention and make you want to keep watching.

Here is an example of an advert that caught my eye, and I was so taken away by it it's now ended up on my blog. It's not the greatest advert in the world. It's not life changing. It's not the best. But I just love the effortlessness of it.

As I was waiting for a music video to load I went to another tab to browse the internet (probably checking out missguided.co.uk or blogging). Whilst on the other tab, I heard a fun, catchy beat and darted back to YouTube to see what it was. My eyes lit up as I saw a quick, fresh, black and white campaign video with really interesting and appealing visual graphics. It was clean, simple yet so, so effective. As I was unable to pause the ad, I quickly jotted down the name: McArthurGlen York Designer Outlet Autumn/Winter 2014. So look, here I am, sharing this video, promoting their brand.

And thats the beauty of advertising.