The importance of text in print advertising

Abstract

The hypothesis of this study is that is the text in print advertising is not being credited with or being given the importance it deserves and that readers would read the headlines, slogans and body copy in adverts if they were more appealing. Also, with more reader effort, advert text would be more memorable. The view in the literature covers research on the effect of words in headlines, body copy and slogans, the visuals and effective headline-visual combination, layout, typography, fonts, and colours. Two hundred and two Maltese readers answered a structured questionnaire after browsing through a given magazine. The results of the survey show that while the image is the most popular element in on advert, many people believe that text is of equal importance and most feel that it should be presented in a more effective way.