If publishers can deliver attentive audiences, ad dollars will follow. We grab five minutes with Adnami UK Managing Director James Upson to hear how attention can drive value for your media, despite a global financial downturn.

Q: Attention has been the metric of the moment for a few years now - how has the industry’s understanding of attention changed in this time?

A: The truth is, our understanding of attention has come a long way in a very short time. The latest thinking suggests four factors influence attention. The first is the actual size and format of the digital ad; the second is creativity, and a commitment to delivering amazing ad experiences. Next is ‘time’, and research suggests that for every second of attention, a message is kept in the memory for up to three days. And finally, context ensures an ad is delivered to the audience when they’re in the right mindset to receive its messages.

As our understanding of attention has developed, the emergence of the advertising attention funnel helps us to measure it. This model is used to calculate the average possibility that a consumer will see an ad, and the average time they will spend watching it. This is defined as attentive seconds per thousand views (aCPM), and informs how value is applied to attention.

Q: How can advertisers and publishers use attention to increase media efficiency and value? What part does data play in this?

A: Attention offers advertisers and publishers a unique opportunity, especially in these tough financial times. That’s because attention gives the industry, for the first time, an insight into how humans actually consume advertising. And so we finally have a highly accurate picture of what ‘good’ looks like. This allows us to use attention to increase value, media efficiency and optimisation.

Publishers need to do four things to boost their chances of running attention-grabbing campaigns that offer maximum value. First, they need to use high impact ad formats that we know offer incredible engagement opportunities. Second, publishers need to reconsider any third-party monetisation partners, and take full control of their advertising efforts. Third, publishers should employ an ecosystem mindset that embraces reasonably priced, programmatic advertising that is simple to execute for the buy side. And finally, publishers must document the evidence of their success: data is key for proving the value of advertising.

Q: With that in mind, how important is it to document attention’s value in 2023?

A: It’s been demonstrated extensively that businesses that continue to invest in brand marketing activity throughout a period of recession often come out the other end stronger. It’s an opportunity for brands to gain market share or simply maintain brand salience. The most successful brands use their advertising to communicate genuine support, perhaps lighten the mood with humour, or ensure a sense of comfort with their audience.

That said, these advertising dollars must be spent wisely. The recession will be a period where many marketers take stock of their existing approach, and refine or optimise their media mix. For brand outcomes, attention metrics provide marketers with a clear guide as to what media channels and formats are driving maximum value. Attention metrics and data that steer this activity can ensure significantly better efficiency of delivery.

Q: What part will automation and optimisation play in the future of attention? Will these make it more broadly accessible?

A: There is a lot of work that is being done to standardise attention and its measurement. We work closely with Lumen Research and are continually analysing outcomes based on tons of data. Optimisation and automation are helping us understand attention through the entire media value chain. For me, optimisation in particular represents a huge opportunity for attention, allowing advertisers to understand the value of a bid request in real time, and subsequently optimise the impression they’re buying on the go. Similarly, using standardised automation to remove friction in the buying process will bring the cost of purchasing attention down significantly, adding value and making it available to a broader range of businesses.

Q: To that point, how can the industry make attention activation more simple for publishers and advertisers?

A: At Adnami, we wrestle with these questions all the time. The goal of attention activations is to give brands and agencies the capability of scaling high impact, attention-driving solutions programmatically, across premium publishers at scale. Larger, more beautiful formats get better rates of user attention, but the challenge has previously been to scale these formats. This challenge has been resolved and brands are now able to harness solutions that can truly scale. It’s important to execute these solutions with pricing transparency, which means publishers benefit from a fair and transparent trading rate, and agencies can maximise their working media investment for their client, ensuring significantly better media efficiency and better outcomes.

Q: And, finally, what’s in the pipeline for Adnami?

A: In a word, growth! We are about to move into our new offices in London, onboarding impressive talent, and doing the same in our new offices in France and Germany. We are excited to enter 2023 with a strong European presence.

On the product side of things, attention remains a focal point and sits very much at the core of everything we do at Adnami. Our beautiful high impact formats are created to empower brands by giving them the capability of activating these solutions programmatically, at scale, across some of the most respected publishers in the world.

About us

Adnami specialises in programmatic, high-impact advertising solutions and its templated and platform-agnostic approach to high impact advertising, provides a scalable and automated solution to run attention-grabbing and impactful advertising campaigns. We work with a growing portfolio of publishers, agencies and advertisers, reaching over 300 million unique every month across 3000 domains. With offices in Copenhagen, Stockholm, London, Hamburg and Paris, Adnami continues to expand its solutions for high impact advertising, working with a diverse range of brand clients such as Heineken, BMW, American Express, Disney, Samsung and Amazon.

Also Published in: InPublishing