Trends & News: The science of (click) attraction online

How will copywriters work in the future, and how will they approach what they do as advertising dollars continue their push away from print and broadcast media into online environments?  This piece in yesterday’s New York Times gives us some clues, as it reports on new companies that are starting in response to the age-old question of what makes users click ads on websites. Money quote:

The creators and designers of ads have long believed that a clever idea or emotional resonance drives an ad’s success. But that argument may be difficult to make when analysis suggests that it is not an ad’s brilliant tagline but its pale-yellow background and sans serif font that attracts customers.

The question is, “how do we combine creative energy, which is a manual and sort of qualitative exercise, with the raw processing power of computing, which is all about quantitative data?” said Tim Hanlon, executive vice president of VivaKi Ventures, the investment unit of Publicis Groupe.

“I think it’s clear that the traditional process of agencies is clearly not going to survive the digital era without significant changes to our approaches,” Mr. Hanlon said.

Read the whole story here.