We must insist on the further demand that the advertisement make a
vivid impression, so that it may influence the memory through its
vividness. Size is naturally the most frequent condition for the
increase of vividness, but only the relative size is decisive. The
experiment shows that the full-page advertisement in a folio magazine
does not influence the memory more than the full page in a quarto
magazine, if the reader is for the time adjusted to the particular
size. No less important than the size is the originality and the
unusual form, the vivid color, the skillful use of empty spaces, the
associative elements, the appeal to humor or to curiosity, to sympathy
or to antipathy. Every emotion can help to impress the content of the
advertisement on the involuntary memory. Unusual announcements
concerning the prices or similar factors move in the same direction.
Together with the question of the apprehension and the vividness of
the impression, we must acknowledge the frequency of repetition as an
equally important factor. We know from daily life how an indifferent
advertisement can force itself on our mind, if it appears daily in the
same place in the newspaper or is visible on every street corner. But
the psychologically decisive factor here is not the fact of the mere
repetition of the impression, but rather the stimulation of the
attention which results from the repetition.
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