One of the topics we cover in my UW Storytelling & Content Strategy course is exploring the neurological triggers that play a part in grabbing (and hopefully holding) our attention - you know, the left brain, right brain kind of stuff. The recent FT piece covering the OECD report about the reduction in attention spans and information retention got me wondering - how could I, as an “Everyday Joe” understand the science a little more and as a result, make smarter, more scientifically-informed content decisions.
Prone as I am to trying new things, I used Perplexity and ChatGPT to pull as many relevant resources as I could into Google’s NotebookLM tool - which not only parses a ton of information from which you can ask anything (related to the topic), but also provides the above audio in a digestable “podcast” format. The link to the research chat tool is here if you want to dig deeper.
Out of curiosity, I also took a look at what Elicit had on the topic of attention and content as always, it generated a very insightful and valuable research. It’s a wonderful combination of super-smart research work and a gem of an AI tool.
Some headlines from the conversation (which, to be honest, is much easier to digest!):
Most Useful Attention Insights:
Only 30% of viewable ads are actually seen, indicating a significant waste of ad budgets on unseen inventory.
Attention is a far superior predictor of outcomes compared to viewability, with a threefold improvement in some studies.
Online Ad Recall can be significantly impacted with just 100ms+ of attentive seconds, but deeper funnel objectives like Purchase Intent require 8+ seconds of attention.
81% of desktop ads considered 'viewable' are actually unseen, and 25% of social mobile ads deemed 'unviewable' are actually seen, further highlighting the limitations of viewability as a metric.
Ads delivered with faster loading technology can generate 1.7x more attention per 1,000 impressions and lead to a significant increase in the number of viewers (e.g., 80% vs. 49%).
There is a clear and direct correlation between attention and brand outcomes, which strengthens as people engage with ads for longer durations, across the entire marketing funnel.
Lower funnel metrics need greater attention to shift the dial; for example, consideration may require around 9 seconds of attentive time.
Traits of the most successful content:
Advertising with features associated with the right-brain (e.g., implicit communication, distinctive accents, humour, music, warmth) is more effective at capturing broad-beam attention and eliciting an emotional response, which is linked to major business impact and brand building.
Campaigns with a higher number of right-brain features tend to have a higher average number of very large business effects.
Emotional response is key to creative quality, and higher Star Ratings (predicting long-term effects) are correlated with the quantity and intensity of emotions evoked. Specifically, a high percentage (48.8%) of top-rated (5+) video ads feature at least one happiness-related emotion jump, compared to less than 1% of the lowest-rated (1+) ads.
There is a decline in advertising effectiveness partly due to a shift towards narrow, goal-orientated, and abstract "left-brain" dominant advertising.
High-performing creatively awarded campaigns are twice as long as low-performing ones, indicating the importance of a long-term focus for creative effectiveness.
High performers allocate a greater share of their budget to brand building media (TV, OOH, online video) compared to low performers. The optimum budget balance has been trending towards brand building, with a historical "sweet spot" around 62% allocation to brand building.
Fame (broad reach and advocacy) is a primary driver of creative effectiveness, but short-term fame is less valuable than sustained long-term fame.
Creative consistency leads to stronger brands and more effective advertising, with the most consistent brands achieving +28% more Very Large Business Effects.
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