MODERATED TRACK DISCUSSIONS: Attention Measures: What Counts & How Much Does it Cost
Jane Clarke (CIMM) followed up with each of this session’s presenters on the goals and data points of their discrete studies. The following are edited highlights from the discussions.
- A necessity condition is that consumers have to pay attention to advertising for advertising to initiate any kind of sequence, according to Shuba (Boston University). To the extent that consumers pay attention to ads, only then is any kind of advertising effect through a hierarchical sequence triggered, so it’s a necessary condition but it’s not sufficient to say which of these intermediate factors would have the effect on sales. Not all of these metrics drive sales equally – know the sequence for your brand and advertisers.
- Gen Z and Millennials consumed more content overall, but still had a higher rate of aided recall than other generations (Gen X, Boomers), shared Heather (Snap). Last year, they conducted a research study with Kantar to evaluate the information processing power across different generations to see if there were any differences. Each generation used Snap as they normally would, and they controlled for ad exposure. What they learned is that younger participants showed superior ad processing power when looking at ad message recall. This is surprising because we may be underestimating what we expect from the younger generations.
- Advertisers are getting better at creating 6-second ads. According to Kara (Magna Global), back when they first started building :06 second ads, it was simply taking your :15 or :30 second ad and cutting it down to :06 seconds. You were really at the mercy at what had already been shot for another purpose. Cutting the original down to :06 seconds and maintaining branding and storytelling was very difficult to do. Now advertisers are creating :06 second ads – either on a custom basis or shooting with :06 second ad in mind, knowing that the longer versions will be cut down. Overall, that’s led to more efficient short ads because they’ve learned with the right material and testing what is going to work in a shorter amount of time.
- The historical econometric model approach won’t garner the most accurate view of cross-platform reach or delivery, noted Heather. From this research they were able to provide a different way of thinking. A :06 second ad isn’t half as effective as a :12 second ad, and a :12 second ad isn’t a frequency of 2 to a :06 sec ad – that kind of thinking doesn’t hold true any longer. They saw that there were other kinds of descriptors, like platform, device, attention – those can and should be used to better equivalize impressions across platforms. She hopes this research challenges the industry’s way of thinking.
- A new tool called the Attention Calculator was just launched by TVision and Lumen. Yan (TVision) explained that this tool was based on their study and it’s for anyone interested in attention for media planning and duration based metrics. It’s a free and interactive tool that calculates the cost of attention with the user’s CPMs to see the average cost per impression across platforms, based on Ebiquity data.