In an age marked by constant information overload and digital distractions, attention has emerged as a valuable currency in the media industry. While attention is a prominent metric for measuring the success of advertising campaigns, pursuing developments and patterns of how audiences allocate attention is crucial.

With this in mind, FranceTV Publicité launched the first edition of “Attention Day” on 29 June - an event dedicated to the industry discussion on Attention. FranceTV Publicité, Ipsos and Tobii seized this event as an opportunity to introduce the study “Cultivons l’Attention” (Let’s Cultivate Attention) and showcase the initial trends emerging from their research. While relying on innovative eye-tracking technology as methodology, the study demonstrates compelling findings about the effectiveness of advertising and attention value of linear television/catch-up TV.

To conduct this extensive research, FranceTV Publicité and Ipsos collaborated with the eye-tracking technology expert Tobii. For this initiative, they use eye-tracking glasses that assess the viewers' behaviours and attention to advertising in real-life circumstances, while watching ads in the comfort of their homes.

The project is aimed at learning about the mechanisms of attention. The objective is to pinpoint the primary factors that influence attention in terms of duration, measured in seconds, and their origin from a single source (for all TV/digital videos), considering five factors: offer, device, experience, format and context.

• THE OFFER (TV, AVOD, catch-up, video platforms, social media)
• THE DEVICE (TV screen, Smartphone/Tablet, computer)
• THE EXPERIENCE (Sound on/off, size of the ad on the screen, crowdedness, position on the screen, etc.)
• THE FORMAT (pre-roll, mid-roll, story, in-feed, etc.)
• THE CONTEXT (Informational content, fiction, etc.)

This ambitious FranceTV Publicité program was executed through cooperation with key players in the market: the media agencies (Havas Media Network, I-prospect/Dentsu, Group M, Publicis Media France, Omnicom Media Group France), the CESP (Center for the study of advertising media), Ipsos and Eranos, the consulting firm, focusing on society and transformation. The study focuses on the identification of the most significant factors contributing to advertising attention in the French market, as in France “cross TV/Video” audience metrics will become a new reality soon. The total duration of this engaging research is two years, consisting of three stages and the first stage, providing insights into advertising attention measurement, has been partially completed.

The preliminary tendencies identified prove the profound impact and effectiveness of advertising and attention value of linear television/catch-up TV, compared with streaming services and social media.

• Linear TV and catch-up TV represent 85% of video advertisements recorded. Streaming platforms represented just 8%, and social media just 7% (1).
• 97% of linear TV/catch-up TV spots meet the MRC threshold (The Media Rating Council) vs 87% for streaming platforms and just 11% for social media (2).
• For the 20 second format, the attention score for linear TV and catch-up TV ads is 86% vs 59% for streaming platforms (3).

(1) % video advertisement recordings gathered based on individuals having watched their preferred screens while wearing eye-tracking glasses
(2) 2s MRC standard and minimum 50% display on screen
(3) In attentive seconds. Social media comparison is not currently possible due to insufficient data.

No matter the platform or media, capturing and retaining a viewer's attention is a significant challenge. Nevertheless, the choice of tools plays a vital role in determining the success of advertising campaigns in terms of attention. The FranceTV Publicité study findings imply that advertising on television remains impactful and prominent while in co-existence with digital advertising on social media and streaming platforms.

“Today, we want to go even further and create Attention, the new key indicator of communications performance, between now and 2024. Our goal is to strengthen the value of a quality television and offer a unique advertising experience. Our objective is to build a French TV/Video standard for advertising attention for the use of our partner media agencies and advertisers,” says Marianne Siproudhis, CEO of FranceTV Publicité.

The Spanish sales house Atresmedia Publicidad is revolutionising its approach to audience segmentation and advertising effectiveness by introducing a groundbreaking tool known as The Cube.

Launched in May 2023, this innovative platform is poised to reshape the landscape of television advertising in Spain by leveraging a fusion of AIMC-KANTAR data, providing advertisers with unprecedented insights into viewer behaviour, interests, attitudes, and opinions.

The Cube, a brainchild of Atresmedia, is a robust audience segmentation tool that takes TV consumption to the next level. Unlike traditional approaches, which often rely solely on sociodemographic factors, The Cube harnesses the power of third-party data to delve deep into the psyche of viewers. This wealth of information encompasses over 1000 products and a staggering 1000+ attitudinal variables, enabling advertisers to tailor their campaigns with remarkable precision.

The Cube allows, for example, marketers to see the actual TV consumption of buyers of a specific product or service, e.g. it provides insights into how many minutes of TV are consumed by heavy beer consumers, athletes, those who drive premium automotive brands - and more.

The sales house’s ambition is clear: to offer advertisers a holistic understanding of their target audience, enriching their TV consumption data with a multifaceted perspective. This is achieved by crossing four pivotal dimensions: audience, content preferences, product consumption patterns, and the complex web of interests and opinions that shape viewer behaviour.

One of the most striking benefits of The Cube is its capacity to empower advertisers. Armed with this sophisticated tool, advertisers can meticulously plan and evaluate the performance of Atresmedia television campaigns. They gain access to detailed reports that allow them to fine-tune their strategies and optimise their campaigns. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are scrutinised with precision, thanks to the wealth of new data sources now at their disposal.

Atresmedia’s visionary tool exemplifies its commitment to staying at the forefront of the media industry, offering advertisers a competitive edge that transcends traditional advertising methods. Advertisers now possess an extraordinary tool to unlock the full potential of their campaigns, delivering messages with accuracy to the right audience.

In conclusion, The Cube represents a shift in the way we understand and harness television audiences. Atresmedia's innovative approach, enriched by third-party data, has unlocked a new dimension in advertising. Advertisers can now navigate the complex TV landscape with precision, confident in their ability to engage audiences in a manner that transcends traditional sociodemographic models.

In this week’s egtabite we put the spotlight on an intriguing and successful ad campaign carried out for brand Homefire, a smokeless coal, fire log and firewood manufacturer and supplier that has been around for 30 years in the U.K. but had never advertised on TV before. From a consumer point of view, it existed purely as a product on shelves across the UK with no associated branding. Subsequently, the challenge Homefire faced was that it had lots of physical presence, but no mental availability – so it needed to create an identity and an emotional connection with the brand.

After creating new packaging and a brand identity, Homefire wanted to generate mass awareness, product recognition and ultimately drive sales. Understandably, the new-to-TV brand wanted to minimise spend and maximise ROI to test TV’s effectiveness for the business’ objectives. Having a fairly specific audience, Homefire only wanted to reach its potential buyers and minimise wastage, which made AdSmart from Sky the perfect partner to test TV and deliver on the marketing objectives.

Using Sky’s insight and data, AdSmart were able to build an ideal audience profile of Mosaic types for Homefire matching those customers that were more likely to respond to the TV advert. They targeted homes and individuals either most likely to have a wood-burning stove or homes that are off-grid. Then, through Sky Analytics, Homefire was able to test and learn at each stage of their AdSmart campaign making sure it was working for them and meaning they could very quickly scale it up as the business continued to grow.

Spark Media delivered the creatives with a relatively small budget and CNS Media were the chosen Media Agency. The campaign was put together and tailored by the AdSmart from Sky Local & Development team at Sky Media.

The campaign results have gone from strength to strength for the business. Homefire has now been running TV campaigns on AdSmart for four years and each year the short-term ROI has been self-funding. Not only did the AdSmart campaign attract new customers but by reaching only those households that mattered to the brand, they retained those customers.

In the early days of their campaign, Homefire saw a 4:1 ROI which has now steadily risen to an impressive 10:1 ROI for its 2022 TV campaign. Moreover, a key avenue for Homefire’s revenue generation is its direct-to-consumer sales from its website, and since they started their AdSmart journey, the website’s worth has increased from £200k to £10m.

You can read more about this campaign and tens of others in egta’s latest Creative Cases publications available here.

In this week's egtabite, we delve into an intriguing research study carried out by TV4, the largest commercial broadcaster in Sweden, which aimed to compare their digital channel TV4 Play and the linear TV channel TV4 with the social media platforms TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook, as well as local news sites. The goal of the study was to gather evidence and insights to improve TV4’s offerings and adapt their communication with clients and media agencies, by focusing on actual behaviour rather than self-reported behaviour of viewers.

The research was conducted by in-home study with audience measurement, using eye-tracking glasses and EDR sensors (Electrodermal Response), followed by in-depth interviews, all carried out by COG Research. Anders Eriksson, Head of B2B Insights at TV4, presented the research and its results at egta's Market Intelligence Meeting in March, highlighting the importance of attention as a buzzword in the media world and the need to understand viewers' experiences while watching content on different platforms. “We wanted to bring evidence and insights into our offers and adapt the we way talk to clients and media agencies,” he said.

The study found, unsurprisingly, that ads served on linear and BVOD platforms consistently achieve 100% opportunity to see (OTS), while social platforms have significantly lower attention levels due to the ease of skipping or scrolling past ads. In terms of actual attention, TV4 Play and linear platforms ranked much higher than other media platforms, with 73% of TV4 Play viewers focusing on ads during breaks.

Ad attention on TV4 Play and TV4 linear are much higher than on social media.

TV4 also examined engagement levels through EDR Sensors revealing that viewers experienced higher sensory overload when engaging with social media ads, which negatively impacted memory retention. Although engagement levels for social media were between 60-70%, overload was considerably higher than for TV4 Play and linear. Overall, TV4 Play generated five times higher ad engagement per minute than the social platforms.

Media platforms’ level of engagement. Overload means that the mind cannot process the information, leading to viewers not remembering the ad as well as when engagement is normal.

Interestingly, interviews with viewers demonstrated that despite initially denying having paid attention to ads, participants did remember specific ad segments, individual ads, and some even took actions as a result of seeing the ads. This supports the long-term brand-building effects of TV and premium video content. “It shows that we pay more attention to TV ads than we think we do, and we remember them more than we realise,” Anders said.

TV4 has shared the findings of this study with media agencies and major clients and has presented them at marketing seminars. The insights have resonated well with the sell-side, particularly since attention is easier to understand than for example gross rating points (GRPs).

In summary, TV4's research comparing their digital channel, TV4 Play, with other popular digital platforms has shed light on the attention and engagement levels of viewers across these platforms. The findings emphasize the advantages of TV4 Play and linear content in capturing viewer attention and driving higher ad engagement compared to social platforms. TV4 has successfully leveraged these insights to engage with media agencies, clients, and marketing professionals.

Mother’s Day is coming up soon in most of Europe and so, in this week’s egtabite, we spotlight an award-winning campaign in Belgium that made sure everyone called their mom on this special day. With a little help from Siri and Google, Proximus encouraged listeners of a special radio spot to call their mother to spread some love on Mother’s Day.

Belgians of course love their mothers but tend to forget to call them on Mother's Day. While most brands limit themselves to commercial advertising around gift ideas, Proximus decided that the best gift you can give your mom is a loving phone call.

Proximus is the biggest telco brand in Belgium and, in such a competitive market, brand image is essential in order to stand out. Proximus' brand promise, 'Think Possible', contributes to building a strong and emotional brand image. Proximus measures this image using a number of different criteria, two of which are extremely important: "Proximus helps me feel connected to those who matter to me" and "Proximus inspires me to be the best I can be". Although most of this brand building is done through regular TV and digital video campaigns, the brand also recognises the importance of building an emotional connection with Belgians by being present during important occasions, such as Mother's Day.

Mother's Day is a day full of love and emotion. It is the day when we let our mothers know how important they are to us. The concept started with the idea of everyone calling 'Mom' in their phone's contact list ('Mama' in Dutch or 'Maman' in French).  This is what gave the creative agency, FamousGrey, their idea to call moms everywhere all at once by leveraging voice activation technology from Siri and Google Assistant. The concept brings Proximus' brand promise 'Think Possible' to life in a beautifully simple yet extremely impactful and human way.

Radio was chosen as the most powerful medium to bring this strategy to life. FamousGrey’s strategy at national level involved Belgians across the country on Mother's Day 2022 and the day immediately after. Their media plan included all major radio stations across the two days, reaching more than 1.5 million people between 25 and 54 years old with an 'opportunity to hear' of 3.

FamousGrey executed this creative idea across two days with two versions of the spot: one version for Mother's Day itself and one version for the day after.

On Mother's Day, Proximus used a radio spot to remind all listeners that everyone has 'Mom' contact saved on their phone and that Proximus can help calling them. This was followed by a demonstration of the voice activation technology in the radio spot itself saying: "OK Google, call mom" or "Hey Siri, call mom" triggering the call on listeners' phones in that very moment.

The radio spots with an integrated voice activation message were intensively tested and optimised for maximum performance (e.g. ensuring phones would call 'mom' and not another contact).

The following day, Proximus addressed all those who forgot about Mother's Day and reminded them to call their mom, even if a day late. This was executed in the same way as the radio spot the day before.

The campaign was broadcast on all major radio stations, centred around moments when people are most likely to be driving, therefore reaching a large amount of the Belgian population.

The Android and iOS voice activation technology does not allow for direct tracking. However, Proximus was able to analyse the increase in calls that corresponds exactly with the executed media plan. This analysis showed an increase of 276,000 calls over the Proximus network at the times when the commercials were broadcast.

Since Proximus has a 30% market share in mobile telephone operations in Belgium, FamousGrey made estimations based on extrapolating the Proximus figures. The campaign helped more than 900,000 people call their mom on Mother's Day sooner than they would have otherwise.

A message integrated within a radio spot that activated a phone call directly to listeners’ mothers created a powerful collective human experience. This campaign consequently won “Best Innovation in Audio” at the 2023 Soniq Awards.

In today's world, marketers are facing a unique set of challenges. Economic downturns, evolving customer behaviour, and changes in technology are just a few of the factors that can impact a company's bottom line. In such a scenario, marketers need to have access to data-driven insights that can help them make informed decisions. To address this need, ITV has launched a new web-based tool - the ITV Recovery Budget Planner.

Commissioned by ITV AdLabs, the Recovery Budget Planner is a free interactive tool built using independent data from Magic Numbers, a leading econometrics consultancy. It provides the expected impacts of different advertising budget scenarios in terms of market share, sales, and profit.

By inputting current spend and competitor spend on media, market share, and an optional profit margin, the tool can express the expected impacts of different advertising budget scenarios. Once these variables have been submitted, the user selects a recession forecast for the brand's sector from available options that are reasonably likely.

The tool then works out the user's share of voice and from that how the share of market will change to 2025, the additional costs of recovering lost market share if budgets were cut and the expected number of years to return to pre-recession market share.

Kate Waters, ITV Director of Client Strategy & Planning, expressed her thoughts on the Recovery Budget Planner. She said, "At ITV we’re doing everything we can to help advertisers throughout the economic downturn and we wanted to empower marketing professionals with both research and data to be able to make a case for continued investment in advertising during a tough period. Many marketers struggle to make a simple case for investment using existing academic-style studies so the Recovery Budget Planner makes the theory actionable and easy to apply to a brand's specific situation. That's the smart thing about it - along with the most recent data sets from Magic Numbers, I've never seen something that makes it so easy for individual brands to show the strength of maintaining investment through a recession.”

The tool is expected to make it easy for individual brands to show the strength of maintaining investment through a recession. The Recovery Budget Planner is a brand-new way for marketers to present a convincing case to finance directors on how advertising can help a brand return to growth following the economic downturn.

Dr Grace Kite, Founder and Managing Director of Magic Numbers, also expressed her excitement about the tool, saying, "This tool exists to help you decide how your specific business should respond to the changing outside world. Everything our clever geeks know about how to win in 2023 is built in." The Recovery Budget Planner's sophisticated back end provides marketers with an easy-to-navigate platform to help them make a compelling case to finance directors.

ITV is currently inviting clients to beta test the Recovery Budget Planner ahead of its full launch. This provides an opportunity for early adopters to gain a competitive advantage by leveraging the tool's insights to recession-proof their businesses.

In today’s egtabite, we showcase an award-winning campaign from Ireland that utilises an innovative digital audio format to help a good cause – driving much needed donations for UNICEF supporting hospitals in Ukraine. This campaign won Gold at the Irish Audio Awards for 'Best Audio Innovation' in 2022.

audioXi, Ireland’s largest digital audio exchange, consolidates the country's largest audio creators and aggregators in one place. It is owned by Bauer Media and gives advertisers a single point of access to over 28 different radio stations, 40 different music streams and over 1800 podcast series.

For this campaign, audioXi teamed up with Carat and UNICEF to serve listeners an audio-ad where they could shake their phone to be brought directly to the UNICEF donation page.

When listeners heard the engaging audio ad in their stream, they were invited to shake their phone which opened up a webpage – no need to click on an ad or even unlock the mobile device.

So, for the first time ever, audioXi was able to take listeners from an audio ad directly to the UNICEF donation page, removing barriers and providing listeners with the ability to directly donate to the UNICEF Ukraine, by simply shaking their phone.

audioXi has a full in-house creative and production team that, coupled with their knowledge of the listeners and the Shake Me technology (provided by AdsWizz), positioned them in the best place to produce the creative for this campaign.

Shake Me technology can also be used to download an app, make a phone call, download a coupon or launch any mobile website - all by simply shaking your phone.

audioXi's team created two audio ads, one with a female voice actor and a second with a male voice – they did this so they would have two distinct voices on the campaign which kept it fresh for their listeners.

Due to the way the technology works, these ads can only be heard on smartphone devices, which have the SDK implemented within the audio app they are using. As they knew they were only targeting mobile listeners, audioXi could safely assume that most would be listening with headphones - this enabled them to get quite descriptive with the sound effects used and build in some 3D soundscapes.

In the audio ads, listeners could hear the sound of a heartbeat monitor pan from left to right, faint gunfire in the right ear followed by the heartbeat monitor going flat and panning out to silence. These sound effects were all used to maximise the listeners’ attention and, for a moment, immerse them in a scenario that is now a reality for many people in Ukraine.

This was the first time people in Ireland were exposed to this technology, which was something audioXi was very aware of, so when they built the scripts with their creative team, they included two calls to action (CTAs), one CTA to shake their phone halfway through the ad - “You Can Shake Your Phone Now To Help UNICEF Support….”, and a second CTA again towards the end of the ad telling the listener to “shake your phone now to donate….”. The double CTA enabled them to educate the listener on what they can now do in an audio ad environment and then push them to do it.

This week’s egtabite explores Blue Screen, a new advertising format by RMB in Belgium, the RTBF’s sales house. Launched in March, the Blue Screen initiative aims at giving greater visibility to eco-responsible companies, products and services by offering a privileged ad space (strong audiences and an innovative design) to those advertisers who fit the strict criteria laid out in RMB’s eligibility charter.

Blue Screen kicked off with two advertisers, Microlino and Eneco. The former company is a specialised electric vehicle manufacturer and the latter an energy provider that devotes 100% of its investment to solar and wind energy production.

Blue Screen aims to promote responsible and eco-friendly advertising and provide viewers with information about the more sustainable nature of the companies and products promoted. The goal is to enable viewers to make more informed consumer choices in the long term. RMB’s eligibility charter for advertisers is based on the most reliable current criteria for measuring environmental impact, and is expected to evolve depending on the availability of objective data to assess the sustainability of both companies and products.

The selection of eligible advertisers is based on a positioning grid that informs advertisers about the products that could benefit from Blue Screen. The grid is based on several criteria, including:

• B Corp certification for organizations
• Environmental labels for products
• Eco-Score for food
• Energy labels for electrical equipment
• CO2 emissions and vehicle weight for the transport sector
• 100% renewable energy providers.
• The promotion of reuse, recycling and reduction of waste is also a selection criterion.

Blue Screen is aired in prime time on TV channel La Une, before the news at 1:00 PM and 7:30 PM. But the restrictive nature of the eligibility charter does not allow for the continuous and systematic highlighting of sustainable products, as these products are currently too few on the Belgian market. Therefore, the Blue Screen display will be implemented episodically for a period of one week.

The week of 13-19 March 2023 marked the launch of Blue Screen on air, and it remains to be seen what the results of the initiative will be. However, it is a positive step towards promoting eco-responsible advertising and raising awareness about sustainability issues among viewers. By promoting sustainable products and services, RMB is demonstrating its commitment to becoming a driver of change towards a more responsible advertising ecosystem by setting a high standard for eco-responsible advertising.

More information about Blue Screen can be found here.

In this week’s egtabite we take a closer look at the findings of an innovative Dutch study measuring attention that was recently presented at egta’s Market Intelligence Meeting. The sales house of the Dutch public broadcaster, Ster, conducted a large neuro study in 2022, based on brain scanning and eye tracking. The study resulted in valuable findings about how attention is highly affected by the creative, the context in which it is shown, and the combination of TV and radio.

Together with research companies Motivaction and Alpha.One Ster set up a neuro-study with EEG scan and eye-tracking among more than 150 participants. The main goal of the study was to find out how you can grab attention with radio, how it differs from TV and how the interaction with TV and radio works. The findings help Ster in advising their clients on how to develop an ad that grabs maximum attention.

Participants of the study were watching TV content and listening to radio with commercial breaks consisting of a variety of brands and products. Ster changed the order of the spots to measure the levels of attention accurately. To mimic the usual listening situation, when radio is a secondary medium to other tasks, the researchers gave the participants adult colouring books to occupy them while listening to the radio.

There are various things to consider when designing a creative so that it commands more attention from viewers and listeners. The study found that it is important to simplify the overall message used in the ad, and to use a maximum of two to four messages together with pauses not to create a cognitive overload. This applies to both TV and radio.

When it comes to radio ads, brands should be careful how they communicate prices – while 9.99 works visually, when heard the listener tends to remember only the 99 figure. Percentages or rounded numbers work much better in keeping the listener attention. In general, storytelling in ads gives the listener structure and makes an ad easier to digest – and again helps keep the listener’s attention.

When it comes to visual attention, it is important to avoid the changing of images, colours, and scenes too often. The message is best placed in the middle part of the creative where most attention is paid. People also tend to focus on the characters’ eyes, so brands should avoid placing important messages or company logo together with a character’s face. One solution is to make use of the character by having them look at the logo, for example, to draw attention to it.

Context in TV ads also matters, where programme genres demand different levels of attention. Ster found that the average level of spot attention increases by programme type that precedes the commercial break, e.g. informative (+10%), sport (+20%) over entertainment content. Viewer attention during the spot also varies – for spots after entertainment, the attention peaked mid-spot when there was music, whereas for sport and informative content, the peak attention came at the end of the spot.

The results showed that TV tends to generate 1.7x as much attention as radio ads. Still, radio ads can generate a significant amount of attention – especially combined with the general lower cost vs. TV ads.

Ster found that combining radio and TV in the media mix generates up to 1.5x times more attention for the campaign on average. The type of campaign - activation or branding – affects the ideal order.

For an activation campaign, with a lot of product information, prices and messages, it is better to start with TV first and then add radio later. The visual aspect of TV helps to understand more complex and fuller messages. If the radio ad is heard after that, it generates more attention than without the visual transfer.

With branding campaigns, it is the other way around. Brands should build up their campaign sensorially via storytelling, simple messages and a clear brand story – the radio ad is a bit of a teaser with just the audio. When the TV campaign airs, the visual aspect is new and generates extra attention.