Banner Ads and White Space

This banner ad caught my eye.  I think I have been trained to ignore what looks like a banner ad but this one caught my eye.  What first caught my eye was the tag line "the cutting edge of cinema".  It seems counter-intuitive to say "cutting edge of cinema" because movie theaters are so 'old school'.  It made me look at the rest of the ad.  Why did that small part of the ad catch my eye?

First, my daughter works for a local cinema, so maybe I am just predisposed to look at ads about movie theaters.  Second, I think that the white space surrounding the tag line drew my eye to it.  Everything else on the ad is fairly filled up, so initially I ignored it because it is typical of a banner ad. I find it interesting that what caught my eye was in all lower case compared to the larger, all capitalized "Regal Movie Gift Cards" which is what I think I noticed last.

The only color on the ad is the snacks and a small part of the logo.  That was the second thing I noticed and I find that interesting that they chose color for those elements because that is where they make the most (they don't make much on tickets at all).  I didn't note the graduated fill of the background color but maybe subconsciously it helped to draw my eye.  I am convinced that it was the white space that drew my eye the most.