Attention for Attention

Recently, I have read a couple of interesting articles around attention in advertising. The reason why they are so interesting is because it shows the misconceptions about the role of attention. Byron Sharp defined attention as an extension of reach and stated that advertising must be noticed but nothing more. More attention was not necessary. Luckily Mark Ritson responded and explained the role of attention much better. But also, beyond this discussion we see that attention is massively neglected.

The way we look at advertising is in many cases forced. It already starts when concepts and ideas are discussed and evaluated between advertisers and agencies. The moment we evaluate ads ourselves, we do that with maximum attention and involvement. In research it is even worse: over and over again attention is forced in qualitative and quantitative testing. The reality of daily life however is different. We live in a time where consumers more and more want to avoid advertising; they are even willing to pay extra to avoid advertising. Or the other way around: they are willing to look at ads if they get something for free.

Attention is an emotion

The good news is that attention for advertising can be measured and understood much better. Over the past 20 years I have looked at many ways how to measure attention and also here we see a lot of mistakes. The most common one is to force attention first and then ask questions. If you want to measure attention you have to register this in an unforced way. This also means that attention is influenced by the choice for channels and formats. There are physiological reasons related to attention, but more important is that the ad itself defines the amount of attention that you realize. Defining attention as an extension of reach is therefore way too limited. Attention is an emotion. And probably the strongest emotion that we have if it comes to advertising. Therefore, consumers being willing to engage with your advertisement is actually the strongest kind of emotional response you can realize. In order to generate impact with your ads, I would recommend everyone to pay more attention to attention.

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