Has eye travel changed direction?

Many years ago, I read David Ogilvy's book, Ogilvy on Advertising. It was jam-packed with many a tip and piece of sage advice for any young creative in the advertising industry.

The man in the Hathaway shirt ad was a great example of a strong visual to aid memory and powerful storytelling to draw readers in and engage with the brand. The man in the Ad had an eye patch. There was no apparent reason for this, but it did raise the question of why.

And how?

How did he get the injury? Was he a war hero, for example? It made you think and engage.

Today, this lesson is often overlooked. Online ads in particular are driven by data and algorithms. Storytelling redundant; this feels wrong. For millennia, humans have engaged with and persuaded each other to behave in certain ways through storytelling. It's human nature, in other words, and human nature doesn't change in the blink of an eye, if at all. When Ogilvy on Advertising was published in 1983, it was treated like the Advertising Bible; most of it is still relevant. Turning a product strength into a human story remains a vital component of brand building and business success. I predict there is the beginning of a comeback, with big ideas and engaging storytelling taking a front seat once more. Data and algorithms, taking their proper place, comfortably on the back seats.

Oh, back to the title of this blog: Has eye travel changed direction? After asserting that human nature doesn't change, one thing has. Not so much human nature, but how humans interact with advertising. In David's day, information was absorbed in two main ways. Newspapers and books. In Western culture, that means reading top left to bottom right.

Therefore, the direction of eye travel would follow this route, and after engaging with the content, it made sense to then arrive at the logo, bottom right.

However, with the rise of online and digital, we often never scroll all the way to the bottom right! Therefore, it has become commonplace to ensure the brand impression is made by placing the logo top left at the start of any expanding window. David Ogilvy didn't have a crystal ball or time machine, so we can forgive him for this one deviation from the teachings he gave us in his Advertising bible.