Six Dimensions of Attention Optimisation

1. Attention captured

   1. Quantity of impressions: amount of views a piece of content gets

   2. Strength of impressions:

      1. Viewer focus whilst watching

         1. Intentional and passive viewing: Intentional viewing is what you go to search for, passive is what gets shown to you

         2. Content: if the viewing makes you think (e.g. a riddle) you pay more attention to it

         3. Memory: moments (humour, puzzle) from content that make it memorable

      2. Viewing duration:

         1. Length of video

         2. Proportion watched (retention)

2. Objective Fulfilment:

   1. Quality of impressions: audience targeting

      1. Type: Persuadables, Sure Things, Lost Causes, Do Not Disturbs

      2. Geography: American, then European then Asian/South American markets in terms of value fo audience

   2. Brand Visibility: Amount of time the brand is visible in content.

      1. Balancing act: Too little = forgettable, Too much = off-putting

      2. 89% of ads are not remembered at all.

   3. Brand Association: Beliefs and emotions created about the brand from content.

      1. Counterintuitive fact: Sometimes, imperfect impressions better than none as they go more viral and impressional can later be changed

      2. Example: Billboard exposure increases digital ad watch time.

3. Cost: Efficiency Metric

   1. Expense of content creation or view acquisition (ad spend)

   2. Aim to maximise impact across other dimensions while minimising cost.

   3. Virals will likely have lower objective fulfilment, but higher awareness. They likely also have higher content creation spend but far lower ad spend.

Interplay: These dimensions interact. Note that people also see multiple touchpoints with ads, all of which interact. It’s important to manage the interplay of all of these factors across all content and channels. Optimise across all six simultaneously for best results.

Looking ahead, generative AI presents a promising opportunity to revolutionise this multi-dimensional approach. By enabling instant content generation, dynamic personalization, and accelerated A/B testing, GenAI could significantly enhance our ability to optimise across all six dimensions. This could lead to more responsive, targeted, and measurable campaigns, providing deeper insights into the customer journey and substantially improving attribution models.

Addendum

When it comes to virals, you exclude the green elements of brand visibility and association, and what matters is the quantity, strength and quality of the views, as that determines you’re ad payout.