Concurrent Track Panel Discussions: ATTENTION MEASURES
These presenters were all true believers in the value of attention. Their key takeaways from the presentations in this track were:
- Attention is “ready for prime time,” as Marc Guldimann (Adelaide) put it. It has risen to prominence in the industry’s agenda and expects it to spread into media mix modeling and programmatic. Attention, he believes, should free the industry from “invasive” attribution practices by giving advertisers confidence in the quality of the media they are buying.
- Jon Waite (Havas) was encouraged to see attention move from theory to practice for optimizing campaigns. He believes that the focus on attention would encourage publishers to improve experiences on the web, which, in turn, would lead to better results for brands.
- Mike Follett (Lumen) cautioned that there was still much to learn about attention in different contexts, flighting, frequency, differences between B-to-B and B-to-C, the role of creative and long-term effects. What he found interesting in Joanne Leong’s presentation (to which he contributed) is the possibility of developing models that can predict attention for any campaign.
- Publishers have come up with innovative formats to optimize for attention on television, according to Kelsey Hanlon (TVision).
There was some disagreement among the panelists about the prospects for an attention currency. Marc saw it as an “obvious next step.” Mike regarded attention as more of a buy-side “trading tool.” Jon said that it will become a key planning metric for Havas.