So now there's more

Okay, so here's a little bit more about the work done by sungkyoung.
All of us in the Department and ICR are busting our butts trying to get everything ready for the upcoming conference of the International Communications Association

That is always Memorial Day weekend, and that means we leave in one week. For most of us, that means working hard to put the final touches on research we've been working on--and will be presenting at the conference.

Sungkyoung submitted an extended abstract of her thesis. An extended abstract is basically something that you submit to the conference saying what you PLAN on doing. The idea is that you are able to present the freshest research data by doing it that way. It also means that there is this last minute push to complete research that you promised.

So, Sungkyoung's study. . what was it all about.

In the past as PART of an earlier study, there was some tiniest bit of data that suggested that within a radio commercial an emotional word can cause listeners to automically pay attention to the commercial.

This is due to a physiological response called the orienting response. You can read more about this here.

So, what sungkyoung did was design an experiment that looks more systematically at whether merely using an emotional word when writing the copy can help radio producers increase attention.

What do I mean by using an emtional word?
okay, so say you're getting ready to write coyp, and you write:

"Sometimes, I wake up in the morning, look out the window at the sun up in the sky and think to myself. . . "

But if you instead write
"Sometimes, I wake up in the morning, look out the window at the Brilliant sun up in the sky and think to myself. . ."

[by the way, this copy is from ACTUAL radio ads that were taped off air or gathered from collections from Radio and Production Magazine or the Radio Advertising Bureau}


Sungkyoung's data show that this copy is more effective at gathering attention.

Cool, huh?

Visit the Power Point site (posted earlier) and I'll write more later.