Advertisers currently face a significant challenge marketing to consumers in 2021. It is well established that people in 2021 consume nearly five times as much information as in 1986. To manage this increase of information, consumers have developed complex coping strategies that involve increased multi-tasking among digital applications like Gmail, LinkedIn, Outlook Calendar and Facebook. These very coping strategies that involve multi-tasking are making consumers less efficient at focusing their attention. Whatsmore, consumers are dividing their attention across more interaction technologies. This combination of societal trends presents distinct challenges to advertisers who want consumers to recall their brands, services and products. In an age where consumers own multiple connected devices, how consumers recall ads across interaction technologies and what drives them to act in response to those advertisements are largely unexplored.

In order to explore how people recall the details of advertisements and what factors drive individual willingness to act in response to advertisements, a qualitative study was conducted in which twelve subjects experienced eight commercial variants across popular interaction technologies.

After experiencing commercials across Head-Mounted Virtual Reality, Head-Mounted Mixed Reality, Smart Phones, SmartTVs, Hearables, Smart Watches and Smart Speakers, consumers were able to recall the brands and details of commercials more frequently on Head-Mounted Mixed Reality and Wearable interaction technologies. Moreover, willingness-to-act was highest on Mobile AR, Mixed Reality and Hearable interaction technologies. On this basis, Mobile AR, head-mounted Mixed Reality, Wearable and Hearable interaction technologies should be taken into account when developing advertising communications.