In the Invisible Gorilla, authors Simons and Chabris leverage their now famous study on 'inattentional blindness' to remind us to be wary of our intuition.
The study hinges on a video in which two teams are playing basketball, one dressed in black, the other in white. The viewer is asked to count the passes made by the black clad team. While this is happening, a student dressed in a gorilla suit walks through the game.
50% of people doing the test do not see the gorilla.
The authors prove that we often don't perceive what we see.
This leads me to believe that a huge portion of our marketing goes unnoticed, even when it's in plain view, as our consumers continue to be hyper-distracted in an always-on culture.