Attention as a metric
I recently recorded an episode of The AdPod with the indomitable Mike Follett, Managing Director at eye-tracking company Lumen, which can be found here - Attention as a metric - Mike Follett.
In this podcast we discuss how it stands to reason that attention should be used as a success metric in advertising, because it works. However, there are definitely some barriers to adoption - ease, cost and currently an attachment to cookie based measurement.
I’m reasonably bullish on attention as a metric given industry-wide digital measurement changes, and can see major self-measuring platforms (cough Facebook & YouTube cough), bringing it into their platforms in future + the likes of Origin with VID including it, in some way. Not because it’s a ‘nice to have’ but because optimising to it shifts performance. We’re definitely seeing media buyers promoting this to their advertisers & advertisers are listening.
The brilliant Dani Stewart wrote an article in September last year for Campaign, which is also well-worth reading on the topic - https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/attention-programmatic-picking-steam-useful-really/1695610
In the ‘same same but different’ category, Nielsen have had their ratings standard (used to measure TV ratings in the US - how the whole US TV ad industry trades) suspended by the Media Ratings Council (MRC). The MRC was originally created (but not owned) by the US government as a not-for-profit which created a way to fairly trade TV advertising - since its inception the MRC have spun out into other areas such as viewability and brand safety. It’s pretty damning that they are suspending accreditation for Nielsen. TV advertising has had this reckoning coming for quite some time and it’s great to see given how fragmented viewership now is and how the panel struggles to represent that.
Details here - https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/nielsen-national-ratings-accreditation-suspended-175637759.html
Five years. It’s been five years.
My ‘side hustle’ from being a programmatic consultant is running The Programmatic Advisory. There have been plenty of highs and lows but we turned 5 years old this week, which is mind-bending. On behalf of myself and the team, thank you to all those who have supported us in some way - it’s not easy being a small business in an industry dominated by large businesses, but we sincerely appreciate all the support. Here’s to the next 5 years!
#VivaProgrammatic