High-attention media supercharges impact of strong creative – new report from ACA

High-attention media platforms can boost the attention of strong creative campaigns by up to 75%, according to a new report into marketing effectiveness released today by Advertising Council Australia (ACA).

Attention and Effectiveness: To ESOV and Beyond Part II is a collaboration between ACA and international authorities on marketing effectiveness Peter Field and Rob Brittain, and pioneer in media science Professor Karen Nelson-Field, providing new analysis of extra share of voice (ESOV) and the ability of media platform selection to amplify or undermine a campaign’s creative strength.

The study – a marketing-first for its use of state-of-the-art human eye-tracking technology – analysed ads from 39 case studies in the ACA Effectiveness Database*. It measured active and passive levels of attention gained by award-winning campaigns to determine the relationships between creative strength, attention, media choice and marketing budget.

With a view to helping advertisers increase the certainty of return from their advertising investment, the findings reveal that:

• – The competitive advantage delivered by strong creative is enhanced by investment into high-attention media platforms, with high-attention media supercharging the attention levels of great creative by up to 75%.
• – The business impact of marketing campaign investment increases by 65% when strong creative is placed on high-attention media.
• – Campaigns rated as ‘highly effective’ in driving business returns attracted close to 60% more active attention than campaigns rated much lower in effectiveness.
• – Even at the top end of the effectiveness spectrum, strong creative holds attention by up to three times longer.
• – Effie Award campaigns are major winners in attracting attention, delivering more than double the attention needed for marketing investment to be effective.
• – ESOV remains a critical marketing planning metric. Positive ESOV improves the effectiveness of both lower- and higher-attention campaigns.

Report co-author Peter Field said that the report’s findings have significant implications for marketers and brands, enabling them to better understand the impact of creative and video media choices on effectiveness in greater depth: “Amplified Intelligence’s attention-tracking data is best known for powerfully demonstrating that brand advertising is better served on platforms that support stronger advertising attention. This data now proves that poor platform choice can dramatically undermine the potential of great advertising.

“For marketers, the winning formula is to develop high-attention creative and to serve it on high-attention platforms, engaging with attention metrics and using them to guide creative and media choices. The biggest winner will be effectiveness.”

Says Rob Brittain, co-author: “Higher-attention media platforms may come at a cost, but given their greater effectiveness, you get what you pay for and then some.

“It is a false economy to spend a more limited budget on lower-attention media channels just because they are cheaper. In fact, the evidence suggests they are not cheap enough.”

Professor Karen Nelson-Field said that the new study validated attention as a key growth driver and that marketers should plan for attention instead of reach: “Reach assumes that 100% of the impressions you plan and buy are watched by 100% of the audience for 100% of the time, which is not the case.

“My advice to media planners and creative directors is to understand the boundaries that each platform and format will afford you and optimise your creative objectives and reach planning around that.

“This approach, without any doubt, will increase the certainty of return on investment, as clearly defined in this analysis.”

Says Tony Hale, CEO, ACA: “This is the most rigorous attention analysis of its kind in the world tested by using humans, not digital metrics.

“It validates once and for all the long-held assumption that strong creative holds people’s attention for longer and that media choice, planned for attention rather than reach, amplifies campaign effectiveness.

“Creativity is vital to ESOV, attention and effectiveness. Marketers and brands need to invest in it wisely.”

Attention and Effectiveness: To ESOV and Beyond Part II is available to download here: https://bit.ly/3Tx95R7.

Advertising Council Australia’s ‘To ESOV and Beyond Part II’ report is published in partnership with ThinkTV.

* The ACA Effectiveness Database was first developed by ACA in 2019 and now includes data from 380 Effie Australia case studies.

** See below for referenced statistics.