The IPA Making Sense Podcast: Mike Follett

Mike Follett, CEO of Lumen Research, joins the IPA Making Sense Podcast to explore the power of attention as a metric, how it varies across media and what this means in practice for planners and strategists.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of the IPA Making Sense Podcast, where we're going to be making sense of the complicated things in advertising, media, and marketing today, and hopefully also just making them a bit more fun. I'm your host, Simon Fraser.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

And I'm Molly Bruce, your co-host. And today we're joined by Mike Follett, the co-founder and CEO of Lumen. So, Mike, welcome to the Making Sense Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

Thanks for having me. So, to start with a bit of background, Lumen really has become the first word in understanding attention. Mike and his team have helped the industry better understand not just where ads appear, but also whether they're actually seen and what that means from memory, persuasion, and also business impact. His work has played a key role in moving the conversation beyond impressions and viewability and also towards more evidence-based understanding of how attention works across different channels and formats. So in this episode, we'll be exploring what that means in practice, how attention varies across platforms and environments, and why it's become such a crucial lens in today's fragmented media landscape. We'll also discuss how planners and marketers can apply these insights and what the future of attention uh measurement is going to look like. So let's get straight into it, Mike. So I'm going to start. I've I've been um aware of Lumen for a number of years in terms of all the great work you've done in the attention space. I used to be on the technical committee of the root of root, the uh outer frame measurement um jick. And uh you and Mikhae have there, I know you did some great work looking at poster tracking. It had some really, really interesting insights in where people's eyes go when they're walking around, walking down streets. And and ever since then, it's just you know, whenever whenever you've become almost like Hoover became to vacuum cleaner, you've become Lumen have become to attention. So that's that's a nice place to be. And it's like the Uber, you know, people don't get a cab anymore, they get an Uber, or you know, they don't talk attention, they talk Lumen. So it's quite an interesting, uh interesting place to be in it, and really big congratulations for all the amazing work that you've done. Now, one of the things I'd like to start on is talking about how industry coverage often positions attention as this decade's major shift in measurement. Why do you think that's happening now and not sort of five or ten years ago? Why is it such why is it so important now?

SPEAKER_03 2:17

Well, it has taken a decade or so to become an overnight success. Yeah, yeah. So it it seems like it you know, this has been a very slow-rolling wave uh uh here. But I I do think it is picking up um uh speed. And I think there's a couple of reasons for that. One is we've just got more data. It we just know more now. Ten years ago, when we started the company, uh it was back based on a hunch, essentially, that surely there's a difference between what people have the opportunity to see and what they actually look. I mean, it is after called the it's OTS, it's not S. And if you measure attention, that might tell you something more. But it was always might, it might tell you something more. You know, it stands to reason that. Ten years later, we have tons more data. There's just just an ocean of data now. That means that uh the brave early adopters who were uh uh championing this innovation have now, you know, the rest of the the the the late majority has caught up. Yeah. So that's one thing. I just think there's just you know the the the sheer volume of scientific data uh builds confidence in this. The second thing I think is really important is m even from day one, we say people were asking us, well, it's very interesting, but so what? Does this stuff link to outcomes? Memory or money or profit. And again, we we when we started, it was it was very much, well, it stands to reason. I mean, you know, unseen as unsold, you know, who would pay for an ad that no one looks at or no one listens to? But it takes a while for you to demonstrate that this is important. And sensible, rational people want some some evidence. And so again, we now have tons of evidence to say not only is this stable, interesting, valuable data, but it's useful. You know, it actually works. Um and we've done work with Ubiquity and uh on the econometric side, we did lots of work with Cantar on the on the mental you know, the impact on mental availability and things like that. And again, I think that makes a big difference, you know, that you're not taking a risk with this stuff. And then I think finally there is a uh you know, those are those might be sort of push factors or or whatever. But there's a there's a big pull factor, which is that people don't trust the data that they're getting. So they they do trust that attention data is real and valuable, but they do trust that it works, but they don't trust a lot of the other data that they're getting. Well, they're asking questions about that. In a sense, you know, attention hasn't suddenly become important, it's suddenly become uncertain. Right. We used to live in and I'll let you speak in a second. I I don't know. What I think is really interesting is that when I grew up, when I I started my career in advertising in at DDB or BMP, as it was, and that died, and then DMP DDB died. And kiss of death of all the brands that I've worked for. Um but when we when I first started, there was still only about five channels, TV channels, and there was, I suppose, commercial radio and there was digital advertising, but you sort of essentially threw that away because really print advertising was the thing. And and there was an assumption that the way in which people uh consumed advertising is you watch the telly and then there is an ad that plays out in full with the sound on, and there is a chance, yes, people do go up um uh uh up from the sofa and go and make a cup of tea, go to the loo, whatever it is. But most people sit there and and frankly endure the ads. You know, and so attention is a given. It's it's it's it's how that attention converts into memory or action or something. That assumption of a hundred percent attention was n was never true. Of course. Never true. But it was a good enough assumption. But in a world where people are scrolling and uh skipping and pay for ad blockers or whatever, suddenly just the the assumption that you're getting attention is no longer valid.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

And it's become as the landscape's become much more fragmented, as you said, you know, multiple media at the at one moment. I mean i it can be being consumed at one moment with varying levels of attention on it. Absolutely. And and and I think almost like you know, if you look at kids, like they seem to learn the ability to scroll on a on an iPad very, very like it seems to be something that they immediately are able to do, or they understand the concept of that. And actually something that, you know, it can almost become second well, it becomes second nature really. It can be scrolling as you're watching the TV, and then you've got kind of half an eye on whatever content it may be on the or on a social feed. You know, and whether and and having metrics or ways of understanding how much that's actually being received or or how much is actually being engaged with is is really important, I think.

SPEAKER_03 7:17

You you described two quite different phenomena at the same time there, which I think is really one is this sort of learned ad avoidance. Yeah. Which you notice in you know, five-year-olds or something like that. That f you know b busy parents stick their kids in front of uh YouTube and kids very quickly learn where the skip button is. It's amazing. It's a it and and and so we are teaching kids that that the way in which you engage with advertising is to disengage with advertising. And that you know so you know often in our studies when we look at how attention was people do look at ads, but it's they it's it's it's selection for rejection. Oh, bloody hell, it's an ad. Sod that. Nothing to see here. Yeah. You know. Now that's an interesting habitual behaviour that I think again, it it's not a novel thing, you know. People are perpetually selecting things to look at that are valuable. Advertising is very rarely, rarely valuable, and you know, so this is a this is a a natural phenomenon, but it's one that um I think we are getting uh uh honing those skills in that sense. But then there's a second thing you talk about, which is this second screening. I mean, when was the last time you watched telly um without a phone in your hand? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

Yeah, pr probably almost years ago.

SPEAKER_03 8:41

Yeah. It's really weird. It's quite a it's like raw dogging a TV programme. It's sort of like going to the cinema is is quite unnerving because you go, God, I'm if this is crap, I can't look at my phone. That God, how am I gonna cope?

SPEAKER_00 9:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:00

It's a moment when you turn your phone on after being at the cinema as well, and then you realise you haven't been on it for probably the longest amount of time in your waking day for like a really long time.

SPEAKER_03 9:09

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And that's astonishing. Uh there. And you go, oh, today's gonna be a good one because because my my daily hours on my phone will go down to five hours rather than the normal seven or something like that. But the thing about TV, there's great jewel in the crown of advertising, was that the the the the idea was that you would have a brilliant program that you that people really, really loved. And then because they were so engrossed in Cori or in the football or whatever it is, they'd stick around because you wouldn't want to miss the starter. And so you'd stick for the ads, and then the ads, it was their chance to entertain you and almost compete with the program for it for attention. And and you know, you know, w when I was started at BMP, there was this idea that we were being, you know, we were uninvited into people's homes, and so we we ought to bear grip gifts, you know, and entertain people because we were using up their attention. But actually, if you look at the lived experience of how people watch TV now, they watch the programmes with the phone in their hand. Um, you know, my friend Rory um is an actor and he says that he does does lots of stuff for for for Netflix. And he says in the contract, they say in the we you have to keep the uh voiceover simple and you have to repeat plot points three or four times. Yeah. Because the assumption is that people are mucking about on their phones while the entertainment's there. Yeah. Now, God help you then when the ads come on. If people can't even now that means that we have this sort of splintering um uh uh uh an erosion uh of attention uh right the way uh through. And I think that that means the assumption that you have anyone's full attention at any one time is um is is false. And that's why it's necessary to measure it. I mean, think about what we're doing here. I'm staring at you, you know, we're in a tiny little box. We have put our phones away. I'm staring at you. But the people who are listening to this in a couple of weeks' time, they're at the gym. They're probably but some poor sods are trying to get to sleep, and they're used to it. We'll send them off. But no one is even with audio stuff, which I think is probably one of the fullest attention uh things uh out there, people are usually doing something else. Um and I think that insight is really critical to why the issue of attention has has come up.

SPEAKER_01 11:38

Aaron Powell You were saying earlier that it's obviously trying to sort of show the importance of attention has not necessarily it's taken it's taken some time, even despite the fact that now hopefully we're getting some some traction with it. But um Simon and I had a we're at an IPA training forum the other day, which was hosted by Lauren Wyman from Generation Media, but was sort of talking about the art of difficult conversations, and it struck me as something that, like, no matter what level you're at within the industry, it's always going to be something that is sort of there from the most junior to the most sort of senior roles. So, with attention being something that you've obviously seen the importance of, but maybe it sort of goes against some more traditional metrics or some more traditional theories. Have you has that come with lots of difficult conversations that you've had to navigate? And do you have any sort of pro tips from that?

SPEAKER_03 12:32

Well, attention is very irritating. Yeah. And the people and the attention sort of mafia are very irritating people. You know, right? Well, then exactly. Exactly. There is this sort of There is this sort of sense of uh I know something that you don't know. Um and that can be just irritating in itself. Um what what I found is uh uh two things. Attention is the essence of advertising. The word itself, advertisere, turn towards the whole the whole point of of advertising is to advert attention. You know, you have a busy street scene, you're walking down, you know, you know, maybe and this could be anywhere. You know, there's there's advertising for gladiator, you know, uh contest in Pompeii, and you're and you're sort of wandering down uh the street and you want to the the the the the brand or the the company or the you know the the the show wants to advert your attention from from what you're doing to that. So it's always been about attention right from the very start. And a lot of what we learn and have learned is is supports everything that the industry has known for years and years and years. You have to earn attention, you can't just simply put something in front of people. Um repetition is really, really important. You can't, you know, you you need to follow um the the the the person's journey over time. Uh you have to build up memories over time rather than having our sort of a one-shot approach to it. All of that seems entirely um you know intuitive and and aligned with everything that that people know already. I think what's interesting is who gets irritated by uh uh by the attention discourse. Um and I think frankly, it there's it's blows basically blokes of a certain age. You know, I'm 47 and I think I'm on the lower end of people who are irritated by advertising. I think the absolute sort of sweet spot is an agency planner who feels that this is a uh a new and upstart metric where people are just trying to sell uh you know, that that there's a uh sense of a I'm I I especially people like me or with Karen Nelson Field who I respect very much, um, that we're trying to sell something rather than trying to introduce an idea. You know, and um and of course I am trying to sell something, I have a mortgage to pay, you know. I know, I I I I am. But it I think there's a there's a higher calling to there's a broader benefit, I think, rather than the challenge, of course, is that when someone comes in and says there's there's new information, there's a new perspective, and there's a better way of doing things. And that and there is. That sort of presupposes that what you were doing before was wrong. And um and I don't think that A, it's not fair because you can't, you know, you can't have a go at people for not knowing stuff beforehand. That's the whole point about bringing new information. And I don't think it does say that it's wrong. What it what it what this data tends to say is that this part mattered more than you previously thought. Yeah. You know, that that yes, advertising, you know, all of these different media work in lots of different ways, but the this is more important than that. It's a it's about a reweighting of what you already knew rather than a uh uh a throwing away of the old um and and and a and a and a bringing in of the of a new paradigm.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

It's interesting because in the um you know, if we go back and what you were saying there about, say, the you know, the fifties or even if there was a book that uh Rory Southern off often recommends um called Obvious Adams, it was written in 1916. Um and uh it it kind of a lot of the theoretical stuff that we talk about today as being new concepts actually have been fundamentals of advertising all throughout. You know, the idea that you've got to make something that's visually sonically arresting, you wanted to be telling a story, you want to be doing all of this. And in a way, as the landscape's become more complicated, I think sometimes it's where it's become increasingly complex, some of those rationality has and by that I mean you know measurability of obvious reportable metrics, have kind of removed that some of that creativity to an extent where it it becomes uh harder to do something different which is more likely to generate positive attention or large amounts of attention because the rationale will say, well, actually, you know, the best placement of the logo is here, the best way of doing this is there, and it and effectively creating quite a homogenised space of advertising.

SPEAKER_03 17:12

Yeah, that's a very interesting point. I hadn't um I mean the the first point I think is absolutely right, that almost all of these ideas have been had before. Yeah. For me, the book that really has inspired the creation of Lumen was one called Tested to Destruction by Alan Hedges, which it still remains the only book worth reading about advertising ever written. That was an IPA. It was an IPA publication, you know, but I mean yeah, and I read all of Rory's stuff. It's bullshit in comparison to Alan Hedges. Uh it it's a very short book, uh just m mercifully short. Um but it's it it's a very, very deeply profound uh uh book. And I think Hedges um knew something, I mean you know, I think he read English at Cambridge um and deeply influenced by Heidegger. Um and so you have this sort of Heideggerian sort of idea of uh Dasign, you know, the man in the world or the person in the world, the the the the beer, you know, and surrounded by this world, which is deep determined philosophy. But on the other hand, you know, he loves Mrs. Dalloway from you know by by Virginia Wolfe and that sort of stream of consciousness. And if you take those two themes and you apply them to advertising, you realise that you that that's the most important insight you'll ever get, which is advertising is peripheral to people as they live their lives. We have aims and purposes, of which purchasing things is is rarely one of those purposes. But we go to the world and as Hedges says, you pick up messages like a magpie picks up um uh shiny objects. You know, it's sort of a Now when you take that sort of ecological view of how people engage with brands, you stop thinking about the propositions or um you even really I think stop thinking about the b the the brief and the and the message and you think about the environment and the ecology uh of of of of how people actually engage with things. That that seems radical and new, but but Hedges was talking about that 50 years ago. Yeah. And even then Hedges in the book, it sounds like he's just passing on wisdom that he was taught uh uh uh at that. So there's always been this sort of hidden stream of uh of insight running through this industry, especially in British advertising. Um and and so nothing I say is new. Yeah it's you know it there's always uh someone else uh you said it before.

SPEAKER_00 19:41

Ah it's interesting that you mentioned it tested to destruct tested to destruction because that um funnily enough, Pete Buckley, who's at Meta now formerly a wave maker MEC, he said that is the book that's changed his life. Because there's an example in there about how a lady makes the floor polish, isn't it? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:58

It's a it's it it it's honestly it's like Virginia Wolf. And it it it and it follows her right throughout the day. A week of being exposed to ads and talking about it. Finally, she makes it to the supermarket and she doesn't buy the floor polish. It's a tragic. Honestly, it it it brings a tear to the eye. It is good.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

I think I think that's something that the IP we should we should bring back more to the forefront. Because I found two dusty copies. I've got two copies of it on my desk upstairs, which are the only copies in the building of that that were kind of dusty in the back of the uh in the back of our kind of library here.

SPEAKER_03 20:30

I think that book um uh is essential reading, especially because it can be read in 90 minutes. Uh and I think no one has an excuse not to read that. And it teaches you everything you need to know. The other book that I've taken very seriously is one by a South African researcher called Eric de Plessis. Um and he again takes a very, very sort of ecological view uh uh uh of things, which was ahead of its time. Yeah. Um we come the reason why this ecological view of attention is so important is because of the fragmentation that we're talking about. Perhaps these new biological behaviours of of sitting in a T you know or in a sitting room with a big digital screen while you're looking at a small digital screen. Yeah. That's a very different when you realise that reality you you you uh you understand that advertising needs to change and you need to measure it. But DuPlessis um had this insight mainly from a sort of Darwinistic uh uh point of view about um looking at uh uh how animals uh uh navigate worlds and uh extract sort of meaning from it. I mean it's interesting that this this is uh you know sense making you know podcast, and that's exactly what Duplessis was talking about, and I think hedges, but also Lumen. You know, we we have sense data, yeah, but then you have to make sense uh uh out of that and you have to extract uh uh uh uh meaning from that. And and I think uh that is the The crucial insight that is behind the the rise of um attention metrics. And also that's the crucial insight that leads attention to be so irritating for these people. Because while attention has always been about that, you know, people we have been coming to the IPA talking about this very persuasive model uh of advertising. And the attention data really does um contradict that. You know, it it it it's not it it's not compatible with that. That and I think that does piss people off. Um the the the real theorists that I think that people listening to this podcast should listen to um is a s is really a um uh uh Carl Friston, uh who's uh professor of neuroscience at uh uh at UCL, um and is the most highly awarded, he's the most cited neuroscientist in the world. So when you when you think about proper scientists, they do exist and they are in this city in London. I mean, we are so lucky in this country to have such a nexus of um uh uh talent. But Friston's thinking is is mainly of the mind as a prediction engine. That um we go into the world and we're just making we we can't possibly take in all information. Instead, um we act uh we we make guesses, we make inferences. And if those inferences are a bit wrong, then you employ a bit of intention to to work out was this bet right or or not. It's called an the theory of active inference. And um this has been taken up by this this this good concept of active inference is the most exciting um uh psychological principle that we we have at the moment. Um and and it's transforming academic psychology and his you know n Priston is right in the he he he's I think he's been knighted, but I you know you you can see that uh his thinking, which of course is building on centuries of thought. It isn't uh sprung, you know, you know, like Athena from uh from Zeus's thigh. You know, um uh uh you know but but the the the his work is is is tremendously profound. An easy route into that is um Andy Clark's uh uh work, you know, um uh The Experience Machine and things like that, which is much shorter and much more readable. Friston does very good podcasts and excellent YouTube videos, but as soon as he puts pen to paper, totally impenetrable. It's amazing is amazing. It's just unreadable, totally unreadable, but very very good, um very good podcast.

SPEAKER_00 24:46

Fantastic. Now um thinking about uh you know what we were talking a little bit earlier about sort of rationalization uh within organizations. I mean we've talked quite a bit on the podcast so far about, you know, Rory used as a good example where he said, you know, it it's it's perfectly acceptable for rational people to um to kind of uh I guess restrict or um be sceptical of creative people, but there's no it doesn't work the other way around. You can't you you don't get creatives to go in to audit a finance department or something like that, you know, to into and to take new approaches. But for for the for the kind of like in terms of thinking about something, as you said, attention can be quite impenetrable, it can be quite a tough concept to grasp. So what do you think are the clearest, you know, from all of the the work that you've done within Lumen, what if you had to think of one single example where, you know, would you say it's the clearest example of that would it that would that would resonate well with somebody of a very rational mindset, um, where attention correlates with real life business outcomes, things like whether it's recall, persuasion, or sales or whatever it may be.

SPEAKER_03 25:56

What's what's your nut like what would be your Yeah, well well I mean that we have a uh a a whole wealth of of uh case studies of of saying that, hey, get get this if people look at your ads, they remember them. Or if if they look at the ads. So in actual fact, it it's so banal to to to uh to to pick on one case study uh uh uh uh of that. Um it would be a weird world. It really would be a weird world if it didn't work out like that. So there's just just uh almost a decade of of evidence there. Perhaps a more an if I if I may, is it what the a more interesting uh more interesting? I didn't mean you know um uh we've done some really interesting work with Havas and a brand lift company called Brandmetrics. They're based in in Gottenburg. They're lovely people. You should go and interview um Anders Littner, he's a he's a profoundly interesting guy. Um and uh uh there we had a look at 9,000 um brand lift studies across um uh hundreds of brands and loads of different publishers all around the world. And one of the interesting things that we've we found there is that we found well, once again, the ads that get more attention are more likely to be remembered than the ads that get less attention and stuff. But we found something much more important, I think, which is that thanks to the technology that that brand metrics have, they can work out um how many times one individual has been exposed to an ad. So some people who have seen it just the ad once, and others three times, and others ten times. And then we could work out how much attention we thought that uh that generated so that and then added it up. So you could have sort of a concept of aggregate attention. And and there we found an really, really profound connections between uh attention and and recall and memory and persuasion and purchase intent and things like that. But what's really important is is the mechanism for doing that. We come back to this idea of an uh uh uh of an attention ecology out there that isn't just a sort of a jungle out there uh with lots of different media competing, but lots of different media competing over time. I think this is really, really important for us to understand that advertising works because you have a sort of little and often approach. And you have to add up the fact that some people have been, you know, um uh uh uh exposed three times and others five and others ten. This sort of reach reach and frequency, remembering that frequency is really, really important. And adding up all of those uh uh uh sort of discrete elements of attention into one big hole. And I think that has been the the the the the biggest proof point for for us, especially in in dealing with some of the objections from uh uh uh from uh some of the percentages, some of the platforms or or uh uh because you know, one of the one of the challenges is if advertising is so important and sorry, if attention is so important, which it is, you know, and and ads on Facebook only get one or two seconds of attention, how can Facebook work? That's nuts, isn't it? You know, isn't my lying if if if you if these ads are only getting one or two seconds of attention, you need five or ten to create a memory or or whatever, then is is is is is Facebook just an enormous con? And the answer is no, quickly before the Facebook is. But because of this concept of lots of littles. Yeah. Which, you know, n the lovely Grace Kite, who another person usually have in a podcast, now she's she's great, you know. And Tom Roach as well. Of course. They they they came together and took a load of the Lumen data and and that uh and um created this narrative of uh of lots of little proof, by the way, of course, that copywriting still matters. It was our data, but their words and and um and and copywriting really is important. There are lots of little and I think that's a really important thing about adding these things up over time. Time is the the next uh frontier for for for us. We've we've lived in this very as an industry, we've lived in this sort of you know, eternal sunshine of the spotless mind. You know, this idea that people come to us um and engage with us and it's it's it's a fresh start every time. But of course that's not true. Because people bring their whole life experience before and even their immediate life experience of I saw this ad last week or yesterday. And and understanding that uh the temporality of attention is going to be really, really exciting.

SPEAKER_00 30:45

Absolutely. Is it I I I think I've always fascinated me is um is the London Underground Network and attention in relation to that and how prime like I I whenever I I've got a great colleague that worked with Rebecca Watts and whenever we would go out to meetings years ago, we go down escalators. But I would I would be knowingly doing this where I would say to her, I would ask her at the end if she'd seen any ads, and I would ask her what ads she'd saw, and she might say, Oh, I saw oh I I saw Vitabiotics. But then sometimes I'd talk to her about, say, the theatre beforehand. And then I'd talk to her loads, Oh yeah, I really love the theatre, yeah, the Western, there's nothing quite like it. And then we'd go down an escalator, get to the bottom, and I say, Did you see anything for the any theatre ads? She was like, Oh yeah, there's a book of Mormon. There was a and and it's quite striking how you could influence that. Um I mean it was just because it was it was something fun to do. She's a great colleague, and we always had a great laugh, but it was it was quite and sometimes there'll be things where she'd say, No, I definitely didn't see that, but I would see her like looking directly at it.

SPEAKER_03 31:42

And and understanding how that sort of um uh it it's not that it's subconscious or non or unconscious, but it's not. It's it it there's a um those tiny slivers of attention add up over time. And and I think often w w one of the challenges that our industry's had is that we do have this, like I say, atomistic view. We judge each ad on its own. Yeah. We test each ad on its own. So we we you know creative testing is appalling, I think, because you force people to watch an ad and give their full attention to it, which is something that almost never happens in reality. And then you ask people a series of a battery of questions afterwards, which again is n doesn't happen in reality. And we say so so so this this bad experience coupled with these bad questions are as good as we can get, and so we'll make a load of decisions on the off the back of that. No wonder these things don't work, and you know um what we you know understanding the sort of lived experience of how you how um you engage with ads, and then crucially how that happens over time is really important. So this have us brand metric stuff I think is is the first step that I've seen in looking at at those things, about about thinking about the the the base unit of analysis no longer being the impression but the campaign. And I think that's that's gonna be really, really important. And that's usually this was this is what we are going going to we have done and we are going to do. But I think that that type of analysis is is usually the thing that convinces the the skeptic, ah, there is something here, there's a there's a deeper understanding of that.

SPEAKER_00 33:22

Yes. Yeah, because I guess thinking about things in isolation, you know, in controlled environments, it's it's not you know, everything is so much context driven because it dep, you know, if you're thinking of like we did stuff that I remember doing when we were when I was on the root tech committee, but you know, thinking about like different times of the day and different, you know. I think I think you and Mackay, he wending walking and waiting. I think the three things that he kind of described, his fantastic um yeah, mind on all that sort of stuff. But like the different approaches in terms of, you know, and I guess that mental availability is not it kind of also it it's not in isolation, it's not where you're saying, well, mental availability is more important than you know, focusing on attention or because they all they all interrelat, it all interreact, interrelate, sorry. Um what's the I mean one of the the things that we've been talking about is about the idea, you know, misconceptions, you know, the i the idea that more attention is always better. You know, what what what do you think about you know what what would you be your counter to that, saying that more attention is always better or or is it the right attention?

SPEAKER_03 34:26

Again, given the fact that the the main problem with advertising is that people don't look at it at all, I don't think this is a problem. Right, right. I really don't feel that this is where we should be focusing our effort. In in in in large case, more attention usually does produce you know uh uh better results. Yeah. I mean, yeah, okay. Um if uh if the only thing you could consume ever was Jaguar advertising. I was gonna say then perhaps you might buy more Jaguars, you know. So yeah, okay, so there is that. Yes, more attention is better, but how much is it worth? The key question, especially for media planners, is not uh uh uh uh more being better, but but what's enough, what's sufficient. And that's the the the the the question of optimal attention levels, you know, uh there. And that's what media planners do. You know, it it's very easy to drive sales if I had a hundred million quid. Yeah. Sure. You know, more advertising would be better, of course it would be but it would be it would be in i economically inefficient to to to spend that much uh money because, like I said again, we're in the business not of getting attention or even driving sales, but driving profit. So the key thing, and I say, is the key word when it comes to media planning is enough. What's enough attention? And what's really interesting about that is that different brands and different objectives require different levels of attention. It's not like two seconds twice a day is not as different. Exactly. You know, if you want to sell a car, that's probably a three or four-year job. Um and it probably requires a lot of big, glossy, emotive sort of you know, um imagery that helps you create a sort of what's called a positional good, you know, that that that you you know in that sort of uh you know, a verbing good, you know, of uh uh of if I buy this car, you know, people will think I'm sexy or powerful or rich or you know, smart or whatever it is. And then after as you get closer to the you know purchase intent in the in the purchase journey, you you might get you know other media and and and so on. And so and so thinking about your the entire attention budget that's required for CNECAR is radically different from selling a phone or from selling a holiday or or getting people to buy a pint of beer at the end of work or whatever. So it's r there's a real job here to understand how much attention do I need and what's the most cost-effective way uh uh uh of doing it. And that's that's the the real art of media planning.

SPEAKER_01 37:12

This is a s a slightly different segue, but we're talking talking about how one of the sort of ideas, especially for like younger generation, be that Gen Z, a Gen Alpha or whatever, is that attention spans are shorter. It kind of goes back to the multiple devices thing as well, of just like so many like being on different screens at once. But do you think that that this sort of stereotype of Gen Z attention is overstated?

SPEAKER_03 37:38

Well, um I think it is true that younger people are better at ignoring ads. And I think it might be because they've been habituated and they've learned how to do it. Um and I really do think that YouTube has taught us how to evade ads. You know, w when I was growing up, principal form of advertising was TV advertising. You could switch channels, you could leave the room, but really you you you you had to endure the ads. And and so you you build up a different relationship with these things. You know, you you could be irritated by an ad, because it wasn't funny or wasn't because but the assumption was that you were there to to look at it. The skip button is an amazing uh thing. Because it you go, you you know the eye tracking is astonishing, you know. When you on on YouTube, YouTube gets a lot of attention. But do you know which bit of it YouTube gets a lot of attention? The bottom right-hand corner. The bottom right-hand corner. It's you know, you know, um it's an important but it's also taught us that advertising is a thing to be skipped. And then and and and so I think people who have grown up um with that. Um and then secondly, uh, TikTok and Facebook have also taught us that swiping is uh is a thing. So not only do you can you press a button, but the assumption is that you are going to uh uh uh to to to scroll on the content or the uh or the ads. And so that has so there's a very different sort of l lived experience of advertising. And I think younger people, because they're grown up on on phones and and and and skippable devices, you see that in their in the even the way that they watch TV. Um uh uh that that that sort of impatience uh with stuff. So yes, definitely. I think that it is a real thing. Um I think two two two things though, on that. One is what are you gonna do with that information? You're just gonna complain about oh kids nowadays don't stick around for watching advertising and go or you're gonna do something about it. Are you going to adopt a more poster-like um uh uh uh approach? It's interesting, one of the things I really agree with about Robert Heath's work at the end of that book of his, whatever it was called, um he says that the in the future there'll be a rise of posters and and and poster uh light things. Rather, you know, I don't think I think his TV learning's largely irrelevant, but I think his thing about the the media lower tension media growing up and there's value in that. Totally agree with that. And I think you know digital media is is is is a good example of uh of that. So we just have to adapt for that world. But then secondly, you were um almost um quite apologetic for saying that j younger people don't spend time looking at ads.

SPEAKER_02 40:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:18

Where does that come from? You know, um there's something like an ethics of attention. Yeah. Um and I think you know, one of my favourite theorists, a lady called um Lorraine Dastin, who's a historian um married to uh um Gerd Gingerenza, the uh the the behavioral economist. Um and and she's wonderful. I mean uh she's the leading light on on the theories of attention that that we take seriously. She says that whenever there's value, then there's values. Yeah. You you know, attention is is is a is something you give value, you you you and you're paying attention to, you um you you you impute some sort of value uh uh to that and values. We're constantly thinking about the ethics of attention uh here. And it seems a weird thing that we have internalized capitalism so much that we think that we owe these brands our attention and that we uh we we have some sort of moral duty to look at this stuff. Um I you know I think what's interesting is our embarrassment about that rather than um uh embracing that and saying, well, this is the reality of the world, you know, uh as as it is, and with these people's attention patterns are different. Go and do something about stop stop moralising about it. And what one of the the final things on this, I think it it's interesting that um we we we yeah, we we moralise people's at uh attention, that's all which is obvious we do, but it's usually young women who we you know attention shame.

SPEAKER_01 41:56

Um I think that's very interesting.

SPEAKER_03 41:59

And I and I think young women's attention has been a moral problem for a long time. Um novels, for instance, were aimed at young women.

SPEAKER_04 42:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:09

And when, you know, uh uh you know, in the 18th century, there's a real panic about why aren't these women at prayer or or or or what's that um uh uh young women um and phones were you know in the fifties for a big problem. These devices that should be for letting adult men talk to adult men are now being monopolized by teenage girls or or something, or social media as well. At every stage, what tends to happen is that where uh fourteen to seventeen-year-old girls lead, the rest of the world follows. They are the most important people in the they're the real mavens. This is why Facebook was very popular, whereas the metaverse wasn't. You knew exactly that that Facebook's gonna be really useful for teenage girls, you know, keeping air, whereas you know that trying to get a teenage girl to put a headset on to blind herself uh amongst like teenage boys, you go, that's never gonna work.

SPEAKER_01 43:13

With influencers, and obviously that being a sort of route that potentially might be a much more like viable place for people to be putting their young their attention. Yeah. Where have have you sort of found anything interesting with the way that influencers are that like how are they holding attention compared to other people?

SPEAKER_03 43:30

Yeah, there's there's lots of interesting work we've been doing, especially with Dentu uh uh as a and their their uh creative labs on on influences there. And we find that um well, given that people are so habituated to select for selection for rejection. Oh, it's an ad, sod this. There is a an opportunity there for for for influencers to go, well, at least it's content, valuable content and v you know, value a story, and it might feature uh uh an ad. there are if it the more ad it is, the less content it is, um and and and and the sort of value exchange uh uh go goes goes wonky then and and you see as there seems to be a sort of a rise and fall of interest influences where they're on the user side for a while and then the money comes in and then you think they become shills for uh for capitalism and then you go well stop this I'm don't want to listen you you're no longer influential to me so I think that so I think there's a lot uh uh a lot that's um uh there but again we should also remember that there is no new thing under the sun we call them soap operas because they were uh shows content that were sponsored by by by by soap uh uh uh uh uh uh brands um uh and you know the Archers uh British radio um uh uh uh uh thing was was essentially i in in the same sense it was set up by the Ministry of Agriculture wasn't it to to sort of incept no no one would read the the the the advertising or the the papers that the Ministry of Agriculture would put out so they they would sort of put in stuff about foot and mouth uh into uh into a into a radio show. We've been here before and we can learn uh uh uh from that um so I think that you know we we've found that influences can be very, very influential and hold attention and that can be uh and uh i in a way that paid for advertising finds it harder to to do. One one final thing though is is that paid for advertising even in this distracted sort of um bitty world that we live in is still often a safer bet than influencers. Putting money on influencers is a bit like going to Vegas. You could win big but it could all it could all be a be a bit of a dud. And I think for media planners again what one of the things I think we should be thinking about is a portfolio of different of different media choices. And a bit like a investment portfolio you have some bankers and you have your cash ICE and that might be I know Facebook or something like that. You know I don't know all of that I'm not saying that Facebook is a a good or a bad thing but it's a dependable um uh thing then you might have your your your bigger swings like TV uh and then you might have this sort of very risky but potentially very rewarding uh thing in in influences. I'm interested by big companies sort of mandating that they have to invest all their money in in in influences. Because in a sense what that you're signalling there is you're mandating we're putting it all on black.

SPEAKER_00 46:48

That's uh that's quite an important signal to the market uh of risk appetite uh which uh m m m may be maybe con may be consequential actually and I think with influence the challenge that you've always got is you know there's there's there's many influencers with very big followings and they're very loyal followings to particular but sometimes you know obviously you know and I've seen examples of it where influence will take on specific brands which don't align with their core values to their audience and can have quite a very you know short term great they've got a big you know they've got but actually it's damaging for both the brand and it's damaging for the influencer because they lose their audience.

SPEAKER_03 47:32

Well there's that kind of risk as well. I mean I was just thinking about you know um a attentional risk.

SPEAKER_00 47:37

Yeah yeah yeah and just thinking about another a me a media that fascinates me at the moment particularly is direct mail. Um because I think physical mail or physical mail physical direct mail. And what fascinates me most about it is it's interesting that as more and more things have gone online and more and more of the kind of what I see as that the negative associated things, you know, your bills, your bank statements, etc. I mean speeding finds are the one that hasn't that seems to still come in the post. But most of those things, you know it's it's cleared actually a lot of the negative associations that you as a per as a con as a you know this as a person would have towards oh I'm receiving the letter or receiving mail. Actually what I find really fascinating is now when I get a piece of quality branded mail it has a much bigger impact than it would have done on me ten years ago because it's less frequent and the cut through much better. And I think in in a world where everything's increasingly digital and you know if we're thinking say we were talking about the Gen Z or the Gen Alpha audiences, there's a really big opportunity for for things like direct mail that tangible physical media where it can be delivered directly artifact. The artifact but you can hold it and and I think there's some fascinating stuff about because when I get you know like you said it's about that value exchange you know I feel a moral obligation I think well I'm gonna watch this ad it's 20 seconds or whatever it might be because I appreciate the content and actually I feel like I should watch the ad or whatever it might be. You're a weird ad I am weird. No one else in their right mind does that. But when you get when you get a physical piece of mail what fascinates me about it and obviously we're media neutral with the IPA this is only my personal kind of thoughts on it but but when I get a physical piece of mail whether it's whatever it might be even if it's for a care home for example I'll always have a quick look through it because I feel a moral obligation because I think you've you've sent me something nice here.

SPEAKER_03 49:34

Well that's an interesting I I'm I think but again I Simon even that behaviour's changing I don't want to yuck your yum here but yeah that is it that's odd. But um I think it raises a D point about these changing ecologies of media. And I think that this is what media planners that the the value I mean we're gonna end up talking about AI aren't we? It's inevitable. Well okay well let's skip to the skip to the case. But um w as an industry um lots of media planners are are concerned about like surely the a the AIs can do media plans and you know what do I have a job to to do in the future and I think insights like the one that you just brought about the lived experience of what human beings are doing and the actual experience of exposed being exposed to ads or or commercial messages super, super important and very, very hard to to get an AI to to give you meaningful insights on on that at the moment. I mean obviously a foolish man who predicts that AS won't be doing this it's you know uh or that in the future. But I think it's it is really important about like what the job of the media planner is. I think it really it there's a there's an ability to it if you see it as how do humans interact in a world and then how are memories made over time. Those are the two core two core questions I think that that um uh media planners need to to think about and uh uh and and and and the meaning of uh a a high quality door drop the I mean the the the the the the the the thickness of the cardboard oh yeah and the and and the quality of the the printing you know those things are real you know uh uh messages uh that that go out not not just the the the pictures on there and and the but the but but the actual sort of tactile you know uh uh the the the the the experience uh of that and and especially given that you know we're awake for I don't know sixteen hours a day we probably spend about nine minutes a day engaging with uh commercial messages I'd be exposed to about an hour or so but only about nine minutes of our actual attention is going to that if if three of those minutes are are are with a with the door drop or something like that that understanding that that its place within a broader lived experience is really really important and that I think is is a is an exciting job for for a for a planner to do.

SPEAKER_01 52:20

I think you said it's a foolish man who tries to predict um what AI is going to do and I'm gonna ask you somewhat to predict just with AI generated creative what do you what have you seen or what do you think that impact will be on atten human attention?

SPEAKER_03 52:37

We've done quite a lot of work in looking at um uh uh AI generated creative and the short answer there is it's it's good enough you know and um you know it it it's not as good usually it's not as interesting it's not as memorable but if it costs you pennies to make rather than you know getting thousands of pounds in time and effort you can see why you know th that word enough comes up again you know there. So I think it is difficult difficult to um uh uh to say that it's not going to uh have have a big influence uh on things especially for small businesses who want to have sort of restaurant quality food at home as it were you know you it it it's like a ready meal in that sense. Uh and and of course it's not as good as going to a Michelin starred restaurant. It really isn't but it's available in Morrison's and you know that that that's why it it so I do think it's a a real challenge. I do think it's getting better. There are disasters um there was that that West Jeans thing in in Australia uh which uh Mark Ritson wrote about recently which is it's a hilarious article people should read it and Mark very funny man and he's right uh about what a what a terrible failure it was. But you know there must have been terrible failures when the first typewriters came up out yeah yes you know yeah yeah so what I think is more important on the AI side is is how people are going to learn how to is this going to lead to an even greater sort of selection for rejection is this just you know but as as things get smoother and smoother and quicker and quicker and and and and therefore ads get more and more intrusive will people um uh just learn how to hone their skills in avoiding advertising even more and and and and that sort of rather conflictual sort of arms race between intrusion and ignorance i i which I think is i is a zero-sum game. I believe therefore that yes it's going to lead to an uh uh a a wave of of ever less sloppy AI slop, you know, to get better and better and better. But that probably means that there's a there's a big role out there for people who don't take this confrontational transactional approach people who try to seduce people into saying I've got something interesting to say you know that so that there's certainly there's certainly that. I think f for me the the real thing about the AI stuff isn't necessarily on the creative but on the media planning. And again quickly getting to good enough um means that we will especially if people embed as most of the agencies do embed our sort of basic attention data into things that are there media plans are going to get much less wasteful and much quicker to get to good and that's probably a good thing. And that could probably be done by an algorithm rather than by twenty people and that probably has you know big impacts on on people working in in in media agencies. There will be fewer people working in media agencies. But at the same time the algorithms uh are necessarily backward looking uh and necessarily sort of revert to a mean you know of of brands like this tend to do this sort of thing. When I've seen this problem before tend to do this. And that means there remains an opportunity to take a a different approach which is to you know um to bring new insight and new perspectives. And some of those were going to fail. It's a risk. Getting the humans to take a bet is um uh i is is a risk but I think that's probably where we're gonna see attention AI raising raising the floor but but lowering the ceiling.

SPEAKER_00 56:38

But I think one of the the things that I feel positive about what you just said there might is that actually the underpinnings or the requirements are good quality research data going into models. You know it's not so actually you know and as you said you know your data's plugged into things whereas or you know or you know whatever good quality you know not publicly available you know proper properly sampled research data informing these these decisions is going to be a positive outcome from from I think I think you you certainly hope so.

SPEAKER_03 57:13

Again it's a brave man who makes any predictions um uh at the moment um I certainly believe that if you're trying to predict human data uh human human behaviour then having human data and human understanding is really really important and the people with the best data will make the best predictions and and that's certainly our our strategy uh there um but dystopias happen as well as utopias you know um we can't guarantee that there are beautiful worlds beautiful futures ahead of us yes they they could happen uh they may not wow well mike it's been absolutely fascinating talking to you today you have so many interesting angles I think there and and it's really been a a kind of a a journey of of learning certainly from from my side as we've gone through everything there.

SPEAKER_00 58:05

What where just before we go Mike where can people learn more about the work that you do or where can they see you?

SPEAKER_03 58:10

Are you are you having things lined up over the we've been doing some really interesting work with uh newsworks about um uh the value of attention on on news brands and and and and how that works and so we're talking with Peter Field and Heather Dancey are about that sorry on stage uh there um uh we are uh incorrigible posters on LinkedIn uh stuff there and then Lumen Research is our is our um rather shoddy website that um we hope to improve soon so oh well thanks so much for coming in today mate it's been an absolute pleasure talking to you yeah thank you very much it's been really great