Addressing the attention challenge and building a new value system for our clients

In 2018 dentsu made a ground-breaking commitment to address one of the biggest challenges facing our industry and pioneer a new value system based on attention.

From this bold ambition, dentsu’s multiyear research programme ‘The Attention Economy’ was born, and includes the largest attention study ever undertaken. Combining the latest tracking technology, and including both TV and digital channels, it has dramatically enhanced our understanding of the reality of attention to advertising, and the impact of that attention on brand recall and consumer choice. We can now isolate the impact of specific variables on these outcomes and from that build a powerful predictive model of attention and effective attention. These insights are being directly applied to dentsu’s planning and buying practices to better unlock the value of attention for clients. Crucially, the integration of this into the channel planning tools and the application of the prediction models to inform bidding strategies in real time. Already recognised as the first network to trade on attention in display for the Co-Op and video for ABI, the attention algorithm can now be further enhanced with our effective attention prediction model. It represents an important shift away from treating all impressions equally through buying optimistic ‘opportunities to see’, to better understanding the true value of an impression and buying a real opportunity to communicate. Dentsu’s effective attention solutions manage this, and has even been shared externally so that the entire industry can benefit, and transform, from their work.