Heads up: Head movements during ad exposure respond to consumer goals and predict brand memory

Abstract In day-to-day settings, eye movements of consumers are accompanied by subtle forward and backward movements of the head. The present research is the first to examine the resulting distance of the head to the stimulus, jointly with eye movements during consumers' exposure to advertising. We present the results of two eye tracking studies with different samples of respondents (total n = 362), different samples of ads (total n = 34), and different experimental set-ups and designs. We show that these subtle forward-backward head movements during ad exposure respond to consumer's processing goals, and predict subsequent brand memory, independent of eye-movements. We discuss the implications.