Dentsu announced the beginning of a new study that measures attention for the first time in Arabic digital advertising. Dentsu, in collaboration with Lumen Research, will measure consumers’ attention spans on a range of popular platforms in order to determine the importance of attention as a metric for media effectiveness, as well as the best ways to quantify, value, and use it for Arabic audiences.
The media agency network will collaborate with research partner Lumen to apply the eye-tracking methodology to measure the attention given to and eye-tracking patterns of Arabic ads, expanding Dentsu’s Attention Economy research into Arabic for the first time. Viewability, eye-tracking attention, and brand communications outcomes will all be monitored in this study. By capturing the human experience of media and establishing the value of attention as a media effectiveness metric, the goal is to go beyond conventional metrics like impressions.
The study will include five clients from major verticals like auto, FMCG, finance, and e-commerce and will span five media partner platforms. After conducting research, Dentsu media brands will only be able to optimize digital media plans to Effective Attention utilizing a unique algorithm developed by Lumen, which will be integrated into the network’s Merkury Planning software. Clients will be able to improve plans across platforms, formats, and contexts and obtain insight that goes beyond traditional viewability metrics thanks to this.
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After its launch in 2018, Dentsu’s Attention Economy will be releasing its most recent study. The Attention Economy is the largest scale and scope of its kind in the world and was the first attention-focused study conducted in the industry. The program has transformed the way the advertising industry plans, measures, and purchases media by defining the true value of attention across channels, platforms, and formats.
Ramzy Abouchacra, CEO, Carat MENA – the award-winning media agency within the dentsu network said,
“Dentsu has been pioneering attention research via our Attention Economy studies for more than five years, codifying, longer than anyone else, the value of engagement in video and display channels in English. Now, we’re thrilled to unlock new insights on attention in Arabic—a meaningful first for the industry. The data will enable us to uniquely serve our clients across multiple verticals by proving the value of their Arabic language video and display ads based on real engagement measures that drive growth.”
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Alex Jena, Head of Strategy and Product, dentsu MENA, added,
“This study will serve as a game-changer in the battle for attention that media practitioners around the world and here in the region are trying to crack. We will be able to determine the optimal channel and format mix by vertical and get a real understanding on how impactful attention can be on brand consideration. To ensure this is all actionable and lives beyond a report, the formula will be baked into our Planning and Optimisation tool suite for any dentsu client to use. Exciting times ahead!”
Mike Follett, CEO at Lumen Research, stated,
“Dentsu has been a leading partner of Lumen Research and together we’ve chartered new territory in understanding attention and building new norms and metrics in the space. We’re excited and intrigued to be building new data on Arabic attention and to assess how it compares and contrasts to English and other languages, while offering advertisers in the Middle East a local dataset to identify specific media opportunities.”
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