The Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity recently ended on the French Riviera. It focuses on the great and the good in the world of adverting and on how creativity drives advertising from an ROI and engagement point of view. A subject very dear to my own heart.

Attention metrics 

One of the companies attending was a respected UK-based communications agency Six Sells, which works with many brands writing content for a variety of digital/social media channels. 

I caught up with its CEO Mike Nicholson on his return. He revealed to me an interesting fact: He was surprised to learn the ad industry still doesn’t have recognised, agreed-upon definitions around attention metrics.

For Mike, he summarised so well what this is:

Active attention:

• Definition: Did a real human look at the ad directly?
• Source of data: Human.
• Measurement: Eye-tracking tech.
• Pros: It’s real, human data, so the most accurate.
• Cons: Panel-based so can’t be measured deterministically, at scale, on live campaigns.

Viewability:

• Definition: Did the ad get served onto a screen and in such a way that a human could have seen it if they paid attention?
• Source of data: Adtech.
• Pros: Machines can measure probabilistic data, in flight, and at scale.
• Cons: Not an accurate predictor of human attention, because one, being able to see something and two, actually seeing it, are often two very different things.

Time-in-view:

• Definition: Simply put, time-in-view is the duration of viewability. How long was the ad on-screen and in such a way that a human could see it if they paid attention?
• Source of data: Adtech.
• Pros: Machines can measure probabilistic data, in flight, and at scale.
• Cons: Not an accurate predictor of human attention, because one, being able to see something for a period of time and two, actually seeing it are, again, very different things.

Human attention audit 

I asked Mike what would he recommend for the future. He said: “Personally, I would love to see us move towards a future where every Web site or app that wants to compete for premium advertising investment has a full human attention audit, once a quarter ideally (like BARB does for TV or RAJAR for radio), which gives a floor and a ceiling of actual, observed human attention, measured in milliseconds via independent eye-tracking studies and conducted for each major ad unit on the site/app.” 

He continued: 

“Each site or app can then be issued a rating at the macro level, as well as for each of their ‘hero’ ad placements. Probabilistic data on viewability and time-in-view is certainly better than nothing, but eye-tracking studies have repeatedly found that time-in-view can be a sign of distraction as well as a sign of attention.” 

An interesting perspective and a subject to return to in due course here in this newsletter. 

But for now, Mike concluded: “On a not-unrelated note, I would also say that we all need to up our game with ad creativity online because the difference between getting 0.1 seconds of attention in a premium ad placement and 2.1 seconds in that same placement is the ad creative.” 

This, of course, demonstrates the fine margins between success and failure on ad campaigns and the fact that we need to ensure we are on the same page as our clients (be it direct or with agencies). 

It’s very complicated to measure all this at scale. There can be too many channels and placements (especially when you build in programmatic and social, too). Every impression is customised to each individual. It constitutes a measurement nightmare. But we will get there. The ad industry needs to get more heads knocked together and decide what’s best/right for the good of all in the ad chain, publishers included.

But, be sure that demonstrating our awareness of this and being part of that discussion from a media perspective shows, once again, that we can be seen as a trusted source of knowledge and a respected “go to” when it comes to the future of advertising.

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