Unlocking the Power of Attention in Global Ad Campaigns

Attention everywhere

If attention measurement started in the anglo-saxon countries, it is now widely used with more markets launching their studies to measure attention on local sites and ads. At Teads, we are very happy to collaborate with our partners as we did with dentsu on the Attention Economy study in Japan or lead our own research in some APAC markets.

On the media front, not a month goes by without a media outlet releasing a study on attention, comparing themselves to established benchmarks. We must remember that these rankings are not representative of either effectiveness or the cost-effectiveness ratio of media, as Kantar aptly reminds us.

Beware of Oversimplifications

Converting attention into effectiveness varies depending on the type of attention and environment. In other words, one second of attention won’t produce the same effect across two platforms with different natures. The Attention Economy study particularly highlighted a significant difference depending on the advertising experience, stating that formats that force exposure, such as non-skippable pre-rolls, generate less effectiveness than those that give users the freedom to watch or skip the ad.

Here, we reach the limit of using attention duration as a planning indicator, as it only allows comparisons between homogeneous formats or media in terms of advertising experience, like Teads’ inReadformat versus in-feed formats on social media.

Beware of False Friends

While the enthusiasm for measuring attention is justified and marks real progress compared to visibility, lessons from the past must also be heeded to avoid potential pitfalls.
Two factors that boost attention on mobile—forced exposure and ad duration—turn out to be false friends. They do not generate more effectiveness and negatively impact the user experience.

The backlash from Meta’s tests of a new non-skippable format on Instagram is a warning the industry must take seriously. It would be a shame if attention measurement led to a preference for forced formats and longer ads, which would drive an increase in ad blocker usage without necessarily improving effectiveness.

Undoubtedly, the topic of attention is far more complicated than it appears at first glance.

Attention Through the Lens of Effectiveness

To gain clarity, we must return to advertising effectiveness. It helps us sift through which factors of attention positively contribute to final results, and understand how much attention a brand needs to achieve a given objective.

This is why we’ve conducted over sixty studies combining attention and branding impact with our partners for our clients.It’s important to note that the insights derived from these studies are specific to our platform and apply only to outstream formats, which do not force user attention.

Generally speaking, the results show that the more attention a format garners, the better the advertising impact.

The minimum attention needed to observe an effect varies depending on the indicators. A few tenths of a second may be enough for a user to remember seeing the ad, but much more is needed to influence consideration. Our meta-analysis also reveals that for the same level of attention, advertisements from well-known brands are better remembered than those from lesser-known brands (+10 percentage points).

Additionally, the product category also plays a role: ads for categories requiring low consumer engagement, such as FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods), record lower attention levels (-8%) but have a greater impact on purchase intent (+11 percentage points).

From these results, we can begin to outline a framework to help plan campaigns relative to marketing objectives, taking into account the brand’s specific characteristics and the quality of the creative content.

There are notable differences between films on the same platform in terms of the minimum attention required to see a significant impact on effectiveness indicators. PlaygroundXYZ’s study shows that some films only need 1 second of attention to improve brand awareness, while others require more than 10 seconds.

Creativity: Half of the Equation

Creativity is the missing piece in many recent attention studies in the French market despite its significant contribution to campaign performance.

One variable affecting results is brand quality.

To maximize advertising impact on our platform, we use eye-tracking tools to ensure that branding elements are well-seen by consumers and optimize creatives accordingly. This might involve placing the brand’s logo in the first few seconds to ensure attribution or adjusting the logo’s placement, size, or contrast with the background to make sure it is visible.

We also ensure attention retention by removing sections that generate the least engagement and limiting information overload, which can hinder message absorption and understanding.
Our meta-analysis confirmed that visually simpler creatives attract more attention (+5%) and score better in terms of recall and favorable opinion (respectively +4 and +3 percentage points).

Optimizing Creatives Makes a Big Difference

Our recent research in Germany shows that optimizing creatives to capture attention can lead to better advertising impact.

The study involved A/B tests of outstream video ads across 11 campaigns, comparing brand lift between the original and optimized creative versions. The Teads creative team, using a predictive eye-tracking solution, improved these ads.

The changes were subtle, such as adding a logo or including messaging earlier in the ad. The improvements in spontaneous brand awareness, ad recall, and ad recognition speak for themselves, with an 18% average increase in ad recall and a 12% increase in brand awareness. The study also demonstrated that shorter versions of ads can perform better than the original, which benefits both the environment and the user experience!

We apply the same optimization approach to ads served on CTV (connected TV) or pre-rolls streamed on home screens.

Attention as a Campaign Optimization Indicator

These results validate the usefulness of using attention to optimize the creatives we receive.
Moreover, attention proves to be a valuable indicator for optimizing campaigns within a given medium, as averages obscure vastly different results depending on the context of a given campaign.

Even within premium, homogeneous inventory like Teads, we observe a 1:5 ratio in attention between the best and worst format/context combinations. This offers an interesting optimization margin, especially as we move towards a cookie-less future, where attention levels indicate the resonance of an ad with a given context and audience.

Recently, we conducted an A/B test in France with Circana and a major FMCG brand. This allowed us to validate the value of using attention as a secondary optimization indicator. In this test, the primary lever we used to improve attention was the type of site, with the best category delivering 75% more attention than the worst one.

When comparing a region where the campaign was optimized based on classic visibility criteria with one optimized for attention, we observed a twofold increase in ROI.

The most advanced advertisers are already reaping long-term benefits: Haleon recently published an insightful article in WARC on the benefits of optimizing its campaigns using attention. Across 26 brands, online video ad effectiveness improved by an average of 41% in one year.

More Questions than Answers

These results are encouraging, but the road ahead is still long, and we have more questions than answers.At Teads, our philosophy is that attention is not a competition between media, but a quest for balance between user experience and advertising impact. We keep in mind that attention is a scarce and precious resource and a means to improve campaign performance, not an end in itself. We strive to understand the nuances of attention by following the advice given by the painter Rembrandt to apprentice engravers, a field in which he excelled and experimented extensively: “Put into practice what you know, and it will help you better understand what you don’t know.” 

We would encourage advertisers to take on this journey and build their own learning curve on attention. 

Below a few step to get started: 

1. Start by measuring a few campaigns in parallel with a few providers and compare their methodologies and output metrics and choose one preferred partner for attention measurement
2. AB test a min of 5 campaigns and compare Business as Usual vs attention optimized in terms of media and creative
3. If results are successful, you can start to measure attention at scale and build guidelines for campaign optimization
4. Conduct studies to understand the relationship between attention and outcomes for your brand depending on your marketing objective
5. Based on this learning, you can start to plan your campaigns and evaluate your creative in terms of attention potential

Sources:

1. https://www.kantar.com/inspiration/advertising-media/how-attention-impacts-media-and-creative-effectiveness
2. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c877y6mxdp7o

Written by Caroline Hugonenc, SVP Research & Insights at Teads