Novelty in Advertising.

The basis of the value of novelty in advertising as an incentive is twofold. Recall the extreme importance, in the lives of our ancestors and in our own experience, of unusual objects, new gadgets, new technologies, new situations, unaccustomed stimuli.

The organism is perfectly adapted to familiar objects, but strange ones can only set up disturbed or random responses, and hence cause the feeling of shock. We are startled by the novel, be it physical or intangible, be it the object or the idea as long as it is new, full of unexplored curiosity, unattended interest. It is full of interest to us both on account of the danger it may contain and on account of the good it may afford. Hence we always attend to it closely when we discover it. This incentive is closely related to the instinct of curiosity.          Curiosity is merely the name for our interest in the unknown or unfamiliar. Throw a strange object into the field and the horses and cattle will circle around it, sniffing, poking and snorting until they seem to have discovered all the possible sources of activity to be anticipated from the object. If the object shows no new traits, but behaves just as the old familiar objects in the pasture, the cattle soon scatter away and are hereafter unconcerned about it.

But if it shows any new or unwanted characteristics, the animals are interested in it for days and may be observed constantly examining it. The same is true of a child with a new toy, the teenager with the latest video game, or the geek browsing through a sea of web pages with new internet technology content.

Novelty is an effective attention device. This also illustrates an important principle of perception, that one " sees " not so much what the sense organ affords but rather what the present stimulus has been learned to mean.

Sensation is supplemented by perception.

Herein lies the strong attention value of all devices designed to arouse curiosity - bizarre figures, cuts, shapes, flashing internet banners, to be continued tv. episodes, a good written sales letter, curios spelling, unusual location or positions, catchy names, trade marks, billboards, browser pop ups, the you are the winner e-mail or the ever present online ad promising on how to become rich from home, unfamiliar media, such as balloons, window exhibitions, prize packages, contests, web blogs, traffic exchanges, viral networks, etc.

It has been known that even churches have frequently carried on advertising campaigns based on the novelty incentive, introducing unheard-of specialties and stunts into the service.

Online businessentrepreneurs, newspapers, politicians, publishers, movie studios, dealers in every commodity, machinery, etc., uses this incentive to advantage. The element of novelty attracts the attention initially, and, if the thing is sufficiently curious, the observer is likely to keep his attention fixed until the advertisement has been thoroughly digested.

If possible, the novelty should be intrinsic, not simply obtruded as an attention device. A good example of effective and intrinsic novelty is the assertion made once by the old and celebrated advertisement of 3-in-1 Oil : " Men shave with it." It was a clear attempt to employ the novelty device for purposes of attention.

The chief danger in using the novelty incentive is, of course, that of emphasizing the novelty rather than the product.

So advertisers should be advise, since the introduction of novelty in advertisement, evidently also introduces the applicable warning of past results do not guarantee future performance.

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