Persuasive Advertising - J. Scott Armstrong [182]
Georgia is a serif typeface that is designed for on-screen reading. It is similar to Times New Roman; however, the uppercase letters are lighter, the x-height (lower half) of the lowercase letter is taller, and differences between 1, l, and I are more distinctive, as shown in this paragraph.
To aid scanning, attract attention, and provide contrast with the body text, headlines and subheadings should stress legibility. A sans serif typeface, such as Arial or Verdana, has been commonly advised for use in websites. I did not think it necessary to say that you should not use fonts that have been developed for computer screens for hard copy. That is, until I saw that in August 2009, IKEA, a paragon of design, had decided to use Verdana for its catalogues. Designers were aghast (Abend 2009).
Ogilvy recommended using a consistent font, although company and brand names should generally be in their standard font. When good arguments exist, changing typefaces might distract readers.
Evidence on effects of simple serif fonts
In a lab experiment, 205 subjects were asked to choose between two cordless telephones. Half of the subjects received the product description in an easy-to-read font while the others received it in a difficult font (italicized gray). The difficult font could be read accurately, but it required more effort. Of those receiving the standard font, 17 percent deferred making a choice. In contrast, of those receiving the difficult font, 41 percent deferred (Novemsky et al. 2007).
A lab experiment presented an ad to fast and slow readers. Half of the readers received serif font and half sans serif. The ad, which discussed the virtues of traveling to Canada, was too long to read in the one-minute timed trial. The fast readers who received serif font read 8 percent faster than those given sans serif font, while the slow readers were 3 percent faster (McCarthy and Mothersbaugh 2002).
9.5.2. Provide high contrast between typeface and background
High contrast between the typeface and the background makes the text easier to read, and thus aids reading speed and comprehension. Thus, it is important for high-involvement products with strong arguments.
With respect to print ads, black lettering on a plain white background provides the highest contrast. This is long-standing advice: for example, Hollingworth (1913) advised against the use of colored backgrounds.
Reverse type is hard to read, especially when there are several lines of text. On occasion, it can be used to attract attention when there are only a few lines of text.
If they have a high contrast with the background, colored fonts can attract more attention. They might be useful for short text, such as an action step. Advertisers often violate this principle. An analysis of 565 consumer magazine ads showed that while 78 percent of the headlines were on a plain background, only 54 percent of the headlines provided high contrast. Much of this was because of the use of color headlines (Schindler 1986).
Evidence on the effects of high contrast for text
This lab experiment supports using high contrast:
Color typeface harmed recall in print advertising. Yellow Page ads, professionally reconstructed to vary the text and the background, were presented to 132 subjects. Each subject saw the 20 ads, which consisted solely of words, with exposure times of four seconds per ad. Half the subjects received color fonts while the other half received B&W. Two days later, the subjects’ recall of the ads that used B&W font was 1.2 times greater (Childers and Houston 1984).
Our quasi-experimental analysis found that high contrast improved recall:
Print ads for high-involvement products with strong arguments that had good background