Remember the famous airport scene from the movie “Catch Me If You Can?” Legendary con man Frank Abagnale, Jr. successfully impersonates a PanAm pilot by surrounding himself with a bevy of beautiful would-be flight attendants.
Incredibly, the master distracter strolls past dozens of police officers and G-Men actively searching for him. In real life, Abagnale executed this trick by hiding in plain sight as his pursuers focused on the lovely ladies and overlooked the criminal they were hunting.
Intrigued by similar real-life accounts of mass distraction, neuroscientists Stephen L. Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde launched a thought-provoking study that confirmed what they’d already suspected — that viewers can be so distracted by faces that they miss what’s happening right in front of them. We found these results especially relevant in light of our previous blog post about onscreen talent and the way it can distract viewers when used in instructional videos.
Shut Your Face
When Macknik and Martinez-Conde began to explore the distraction phenomenon by studying magicians in Las Vegas, they were particularly interested in understanding how we can be so easily deceived by simple magic tricks— even though we know that magicians are out to trick us. It turns out all the magician has to do is divert our focus a bit.
So what’s one of the most effective tools in the magician’s bag of tricks?
His face.
You have a wonderful online product catalog, and your website runs like a dream. Simple to search, easy to navigate—what’s not to love? But you still see room for improvement, both in sales and conversion rates. So what’s next?
For traditional advertising and marketing, choosing to use onscreen talent or a spokesperson may indeed be spot on. After all, consumers can relate to them, warm up to them and feel motivated to go buy a product simply because of the personality and trust they can evoke.
When it comes to web-based interactive content and cross-browser compatibility, the future is here and it’s HTML5. The problem is: not everyone’s on board yet.
As a savvy product manager, chances are you run a tight ship when it comes to new product launches.
Got questions about Flash®, HTML5 and cross-browser compatibility? You’re not alone. Since we began rolling out our interactive solutions in HTML5, we’ve received quite a few questions. So we’ve decided to address some of them on our blog but feel free to 
Once upon a time in a land far far away, consumers were satisfied to learn about a product by simply reviewing features printed on a sales tag, consulting with an all-knowing salesperson and getting a magical in-person demo. Consumers lived happily ever after — making decisions based on limited product information.
