Why do some yellow page advertisements capture attention better than others?

One thousand Finnish people aged 20 years and more were interviewed to inve stigate how people perceive dentists' yellow page advertisements and which attributes they iind attractive. Each subject was asked to identify the adv ertisement that captured his/her attention the most and which one least fro m a double-page spread of dentists' yellow page ads. The subjects were then asked to give the reason for the decisions, which was duly recorded. Vario us characteristics of the ads were recorded. In the analyses the five most commonly attractive and the five most commonly unattractive ads were compar ed with all the others shown to the subjects. The five roost commonly chose n attractive advertisements were larger and had less text density than the others (P < 0.001). In contrast, use of frames decreased by fourfold che pr obability of being chosen. The subjects most often reported use of pictures or photograph, clarity of the ad, and large size as the reasons for choosi ng their favorite ad. Commonly expressed reasons for disliking an ad were s mall print, being boring or uninformative, and an unclear or muddled look, All three ads designed by advertising professionals were among the five mos t commonly attractive, whereas all five most commonly unattractive ads were planned by dentists themselves. Dentists plan their yellow page advertisem ents alone much too often. This results in ads chat consumers do not necess arily distinguish from the mass of others. Consumers appreciated use of a p icture or photograph and a clear message in large ads. Common criticisms we re small print and a boring, uninformative, or unclear appearance.