Fast-track for greater ad engagement

A couple of weeks back I posted some thoughts on whether ‘consumer mindset’ has any role to play in current media planning. One response remarked on how it still matters, and this is borne out in the ongoing prevalence of articles and posts about “attention”.

So that in turn started me thinking about how to attract attention. As Bill Bernbach said, if your advertising goes unnoticed, everything else is academic. Even I’m not old enough to have worked alongside Bill, but I was privileged to have learned media planning at GGT, and the legendary Dave Trott built on Bill’s wisdom with the (terrifying) observation that 89% of advertising does in fact go unnoticed. Money down the drain.

So how should brands address this? My career focus has primarily been on media placement but, as Andrew Tindall and System1 regularly and rightly point out, making creative work more effective will massively contribute. Their processes and recommendations won’t generate a brilliant creative idea but will ensure any ad can be finessed in a manner most likely to attract and hold attention.

But let’s get back to media placement. Surely one route to maximising the chance of real engagement is a strategy that places ads in front of alert and attentive observers. Mindset again. Which is why I am regularly disappointed by its apparent absence in modern planning.

So how might you find these alert and attentive people? One option has always been to embed ads in content which viewers or readers are likely to be enjoying, although this does increase the risk that the advertising will be regarded as an unwelcome intrusion.

Another option might be to identify activities or moments when individuals are in a heightened state of alertness simply because of what they’re doing. I spent many years marketing OOH ads in airports, and I believe this setting provides a great example. Travellers are in an unfamiliar, unique setting, perhaps transitioning from one activity to another, maybe leaving or entering a country. Plus, they’re in that location for a while. A great mindset conducive to attracting and holding attention.

I always thought it was part of the challenge of the media planning role to identify “touchpoints” like this, rather than prioritizing the maximisation of impressions over meaningful engagement. Are we undervaluing mindset in today’s planning? Where else might we find naturally attentive audiences?