A storm has been brewing with the dynamic media consumption patterns, evolving consumer inclinations, and factors affecting measurement metrics. Doomscrolling feeds full of content, multi-screen viewing, and constantly deteriorating interest mould the distracted consumer who may only ‘view’ an ad campaign, but not pay attention to it.
Google’s plan to phase out third-party cookies, a decline in traditional TV consumption, ROI-driven outlook of brands on advertising, and more of such aspects have also been restricting data sources for measurement and targeting tools. Consequently, media professionals are gazing towards the Attention Measurement Metrics that can tell an advertiser whether the consumer was just viewing their ad, or paying attention to it.
“It is attention that we should be seeking, rather than the metrics”, states Nelson-Field, who believes that the current market challenge emerged when we started measuring metrics inward and not outward. Inward being measuring the impressions and outward being the human contact with the campaign.
Time-in-view, the chosen metric in measurement, is supposed to be equal and stable, but is actually a proxy for engagement. According to Nelson-Field, “Time-in-view- theoretically makes sense, it’s a counter of how long an ad has been or is on screen, but it’s a proxy for the engagement. The reality is that it doesn’t tell you anything about humans and how they interact with placements or the media”.
“We live in a highly distracted world, and the consumption of media is switching between active, passive, or no attention. The viewability metric is not the villain, earlier brands were paying for ads that were not even loaded. Although, time-in-view is constantly on, and doesn’t account for those gaps where consumers are distracted”, shares Nelson-Field.
For every second of the time-in-view counter, there’s a chance that one in three humans is not even looking. There’s an estimate of around 70% error that sits underneath the counter and is supposed to be stable. “It’s not because of fraud, or malice. It is purely because the way humans interact with media is a highly destructive pattern,” she adds.
She further elaborates on the curious case of attention and how the upcoming metric would reinforce advertising in the distracted world.
Attention Decay
The concept of attention decay challenges the current metric which suggests that a view is equal to consumption. She mentions that the consumption of media is followed by the attention of consumers perishing, who are only fully attentive during specific periods or key moments. Attention Decay can be categorized into ‘fast’ and ‘slow’ decay of attention. Fast Attention Decay is active attention early on and then a steep drop, while Slow Attention Decay is largely stable.
These two decays have a massive impact on reach-based planning. “Underneath every single device, there’s a different distribution happening. The faster the decay, the more inactive the reach curves are, and creativity can’t help much, it can only help momentarily. How much attention a consumer pays is dictated by the functionality of the platform, and the user experience of the platform is what defines this decay curve,” says Nelson-Field.
The overall user experience, how the ad loads, and the functionality of the platform, all of these affect the attention of users. The natural decay of attention and the attention metric remains the same across all platforms for the same ad, even if the viewability of that ad differs on each platform. She further explains this with the analogy of the ‘egg’ and ‘chicken’, and what comes first. The egg in this is the media, while the chicken is the creative. According to her, as the attention metric for each ad remains the same across all platforms, even if viewability differs, this means that “the egg wins and the chicken may only be able to get you a few extra seconds. For instance, positive emotions in an ad do make a difference, and get advertisers a few of those extra seconds”.
She further emphasizes the platform being the dictator of attention. She reckons, “You can put high-arousal content on a low-attention platform, and it gets you a small uplift. If you get the same high-arousal emotional content on a high-attention platform, the gap between ‘not a motive’ and ‘a motive’ is much greater, because the platform range is greater on high-intention platforms than small intention platforms.”
Misattribution of metrics is also a concern for the smaller or relatively newer players in the market if the key branded moment is skipped on a view attributed to the campaign. “If your ad is at the third second, and you’re in a fast scrolling and fast decay distribution span, then the ad may be misattributed to the larger competitor because you might look and feel like your competitor”, she states.
Attention Data
Attention Data can be bifurcated into ‘human’ or personal level data, and ‘synthetic’ or impression level data. This set of data is generated by factoring various elements and also hygiene factors, such as scroll speed, and video play. This attention data is generated by observing gaze tracking, facial detection, and pose estimation. Human response is also accounted for in order to gauge active or passive attention to an ad, along with individual-level hygiene, and outcomes data.
Each data has its limitations, as it is garnered from footage of humans, and human nature is complex, and multi-dimensional. Although, Nelson-Field states that, “The human truth will be the baseline, and the models will use that and keep becoming better and better”.
Mental Availability
All of the advertising efforts are concentrated on having mental availability in the consumer’s mind. Nelson-Field defines this availability as the consumer proactively thinking of a brand when the need or desire for a product category emerges. “Awareness is when the consumer knows who you are, and attention is when they know who you are and what you do”, she adds.
Unexpectedness in ads is when you change the prediction of the viewer, and the ad gauges their attention. She describes this as a hack to increase the attention metric. “I would tell a brave brand manager to make a shocking ad, but most wouldn’t risk it”. Another way is to have distinctive assets, which are solid and can differentiate the brand from others. “It does not just end at distinctive assets, brands need to have a distinctive tonality of campaigns, and brands can also resort to sonic branding for that,” she adds.
We are experiencing a phenomenon where the brand may remember the ad, but not the brand. But these tactical strategies bolstered by the new measurement metric could help advertisers garner the new currency of advertising - attention.
