Are there spiders at your cocktail party? Revealing marketing strategy blindspots

12th April 2016 - Last modified 5th July 2024

Written by Victoria Coupe.

Recently, while sat at my desk, busily working away for our clients, I suddenly became aware of the tiniest spider suspended in the air above my forehead, right on the outskirts of my peripheral vision. Wondering how on earth I spotted it, I suddenly remembered reading an article on the subject – which I thought I’d share with you.

It turns out this phenomenon has been studied by Columbia University in the imaginatively titled paper ‘Spiders at the cocktail party: an ancestral threat that surmounts inattentional blindness’ (I only wish I knew what the spiders were doing at the cocktail party – drinking a Bloody Mary perhaps?).

Apparently the spider’s leggy shape is able to draw our attention, even when we’re focusing on something else, in this case, my computer screen, while other shapes such as flies for example, don’t seem to draw our attention in the same way. The authors of the study suggest that the spiders might be hard-wired into the human visual system, helping us avoid a threat that was common to our ancestors.

What’s even more interesting is that images of spiders somehow manage to break through people’s “inattentional blindness”, or blindspots. Inattentional blindness is when focusing on one thing makes you ‘blind’ to everything else. It’s actually quite powerful, as demonstrated by a classic study in which people who were focused on counting basketball passes, failed to see a person in a gorilla suit walking through the middle of the picture.

This rings true to me. There have often been times where I’ve been sat at home and suddenly spotted a spider out of the corner of my eye, even when I’ve been quite engrossed in the latest Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D episode…

So, and bear with me dear reader for I do have a point, this also got me thinking about marketing and if it’s possible that marketers get so focused on certain things that perhaps they no longer see the ‘spiders’ on the periphery? I think the answer is that this can definitely happen, especially when marketing teams are overloaded and entrenched in goals that may have been defined some time ago. Marketing agencies on the other hand can lend a new perspective and identify potential threats. A good agency will provide proactive consultancy, helping you to avoid getting bitten by missing a trick or trapped in a sticky web of same old, same old.

So if you think there might be a few spiders at your cocktail party (or even if you don’t), drop us a line. We’re experts at breaking through marketing blindspots and we’d be happy to provide a no-obligation initial consultancy call.

Written by Victoria Coupe – Senior Account Manager