The introduction of the smartphone extended the time that many consumers spend with media throughout the day. Still, advertisers have only so many moments to get people’s attention as they divide their time among a wider variety of media channels. Marketers also have more tools to help understand the quality and quantity of attention.
“The excitement and the energy around attention is because there is evidence that it works,” Chrissie Hanson, global chief strategy officer at media agency OMD, said in this Beet.TV video hosted by Jon Watts, executive director of The Project X Institute. “There is evidence that attention matters to achieving those better outcomes.”
Whether marketers are tracking their campaigns with tag-based solutions or doing more intensive gaze studies to measure how much time people spending looking at ad creative, they can get a better idea of viewer attention.
“You have technology that affords us the ability to capture real human attention at a really granular level,” Hanson said. “You don’t have to just simulate anymore. You don’t have to rely on proxy data points.”
Different Benchmarks for Attention
The importance of measuring attention can vary by the goals of an advertising campaign. For products and services that require more in-depth explanation, consumer attention may have a different benchmark than for more familiar brands.
“Being really rigorous about what is it that the client wants because then I can better guide in terms of how do we manage that metric in the right way?” Hanson said.
Understanding what gets people’s attention also helps marketers to obtain more complete consumer insights. That understanding includes a better idea of much advertising viewers will tolerate.
“What I love about attention is that it returns your focus, your assessment of metrics, your guidance right back to the audience, right back to the consumer,” Hanson said. “This is not about attention harvesting. It’s actually being really respectful, and saying ‘we only need this much for this task for where you are in the journey.’”
You are watching “Advertising Transformation: What’s Next for Converged TV and Video,” a Beet.TV Virtual Leadership Summit presented by Mediaocean. For more videos, please visit this page.
