Cannes Lions - The Triple Opportunity of Attention with Karen Nelson-Field, Orlando Wood, Rob Brittain

0:06Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Uncensored CMO and another of our mini editions coming to you all the way from Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity. Now, as if my last episode with three guests, Les Burnett, Grace Kite and Tom Roach wasn't enough, I've got another triple bill for you. None other than Karen Nelson-Fields, Rob Britton and Orlando Wood. So what are they talking about? Well, anyone who was at Cannes last year or listened to my episode last year will know they did a fantastic presentation called Triple Jeopardy. They're back this time, but with a different question, the triple opportunity.

0:40How do we optimise media? How do we capture attention? And how do we use emotion to drive the performance of creativity? This is a genuinely fascinating conversation. I love this topic. And these three have been working on some very, very groundbreaking new research over the last few weeks, which they presented at Cannes. And I've got a little taster for you in this episode. So here it is. This time last year, we were sat here talking about triple jeopardy and what a year it's been. Well, maybe let's start there. How did the talk last year go down? Well, pretty well, I think, didn't it, Karen?

1:14They asked us back. Yeah, they did. They did. Yeah, no, we've had a lot of interest since, haven't we? And we wanted to come back and tell the other side of the story, really, didn't we? Yeah, I mean, I think last year we presented some problems, right? This year we're presenting some solutions. So I think it went well. And And with empirical data, wasn't it? It was a new study that Rob led, really. Well, we should introduce Rob, shouldn't we? We should. Peter Field has morphed himself into Rob Britton. So you're in better looking version. In case anyone remembers. Yes, Peter. In case anyone remembers from last year.

1:51So, Rob, introduce yourself. I'd love to find out what you do. And also talk about the study itself as well and what you did. Because something of a world first, bringing together some different data sources to answer some pretty big questions. Yeah, it was all very grown up. I mean, in a nutshell, I'm an independent consultant. So I spent 20 years client side building marketing effectiveness capability. And now I'm a one man band doing it by myself. So which is very cool. But one of the key relationships I have in Australia is with the Ad Council, and they license and run the FE Awards. And they've been building an effectiveness database.

2:23So I write papers on their behalf with Peter. But how it came out is Karen and I and Peter, we did a study towards the end of last year. And it was the first one where we'd matched attention data to proper strong in market effects data. And the trends in there were really obvious, weren't they? So it was one of those ones in hindsight, the results look obvious. But the approach that we took was quite groundbreaking, really. And so we published that towards the end of last year. And then Peter kind of drew Orlando into our orbit as well. Because I know that, you know, you three had obviously worked together beforehand.

3:04But then we thought, well, a natural extension would be to bring in system one and understand emotion as a part of that as well. And hence we ended up where we are today. And, I mean, I had Peter on the show actually a couple of years ago. And he said the relationship between ESOV is starting to break down, he said, because it doesn't measure the actual attention achieved. Is that right? Yeah, I mean, it's something that Karen talks about very eloquently as well. But essentially, it's kind of, you get what you pay for. And so you can both spend the same amount. But if you spend it on something that doesn't work as well, then actually you don't get what you're paying for.

3:37And the paper prior to this one, Karen came in and basically stated that, that attention was the reason for that, which then led to us partnering kind of more fully, I guess, this year. And then obviously with Orlando and yourselves. as well. So Aesop still works, but it's, you know, it's not just how much you spend, but it's how you spend it, you know. And how much difference would there be between in terms of, you know, actual reach achieved versus what you might think between a, you know, good, good, good campaign, a bad campaign? I'm going to pitch to Karen for that. That is well and truly her wheelhouse.

4:10Well, I mean, the tricky part is there's not one number, right? So the, the way that people interact with a platform varies so greatly across platform format, ad length, device. And the way that people interact with a format defines how much reach volume you actually will achieve. So you ask me, you know, what is it? What is that? Actually, there's not one number. But I mean, you know, you could safely say that a large majority of particularly web based sort of programmatic online, you'd be lucky if you get 20 % of the volume you pay for in terms of reach. I mean, that's pretty meaningful, right?

4:57In terms of the amount of money that gets spent versus what you get for that money, that's pretty huge, isn't it? Well, I don't judge that. I mean, CPM is another conversation altogether. But if you think you're getting something and you're not getting something, regardless if it's inexpensive, it's still not correct. Well, if I go back to my client days, I was buying reach, I was buying frequency, so I'd be sold, you know, this percentage of the population will see it this many times. But what happens to the reach curve when you adjust it for attention, for example? Well, so that's exactly the point that, you know, if you have attention adjusted reach curves alongside your normal reach curves, it gets adjusted down considerably relative to the volume that are actually looking versus the volume that you're buying, which has no relationship to the volume that's looking.

5:53Yeah, that's the key point, isn't it? The difference between what's served up and what's actually consumed can be quite different. Describe, because obviously we haven't got the benefit of the charts here today, but just describe that for me, because I think it's quite dramatic in your presentation, the difference in, you know, attention through, let's say you take a 30-second ad, the difference between one platform and another platform, you know, describe the difference between, you might expect between the two. Well, it depends on the user experience, right? So this is what people don't understand.

6:21Again, there's no, each platform, you know, one might have audio on versus audio off naturally. One might be viewed horizontally versus vertically. One, you can sit on a couch. One, you're locked in a cinema. Like, they're all very different. But it's that user experience that defines how humans actually look at ads. And we see, if you think about a normal natural distribution, you know, the distribution can be super sharp. So you get a lot of people that watch super early and then just drop to nothing in five, I'd say five seconds flat. It's actually less than that, right? Or you could have some that kind of watch on and off, but do so consistently and cross the entire course of the view.

7:04So it's a much flatter distribution. So you might have 40 % of your reach volume at the front and 40 % at the end. So at least you know what you're dealing with there. And I mean, that has profound effects, doesn't it? For like how you brand the advertising. So when you see the big decay, and then you see when people actually put their branding in their ads. I suppose, Orlando, it comes to the point that you often advise people in terms of fluent devices and how you create memory for your brand as well, isn't it? Yes. I mean, if you create an asset that moves and lives like a character, then you can get straight on with the action.

7:36And you've got the brand, if you've established it, this device, the brand from the very first moment. So it's one way, one creative way of dealing with it. But yes, as you say in the presentation, you know, if your branded moments are not till the very end and people have already gone, then, you know, what good is that? I was just going to add to that. I mean, you know, people generally understand that if the ads are at the end, people won't be watching. But they don't understand that if it's in second two, they might not be watching either. You know, there's another thing. There's another issue with that.

8:08Well, to jump to another conversation we had last time on the podcast about the is it two and a half seconds? typically for memory to be created that's a pretty threshold yeah i mean it varies but that's the threshold that we use because we see that when we do change in memory structures from a control and a test that that's about the point in time when the needle moves a bit yeah now obviously we're here in can a festival of creativity um how much difference does the creative make depending on which platform you're watching in terms of amount of attention achieved yeah well so when we tested it we did see a reasonable spread so we the test platform we used was youtube australia so which worked very well because you know it's got text so you can measure it pretty easily so for karen that makes it a lot easier but also everyone has the same opportunity to see and but we had a spread probably between about three seconds and 10 seconds you know the sample that we had which feels really big but you know as karen said you know actually that's expected there's nothing that's breaking the top or the bottom boundary from that so it does clearly make a difference and it but it's all the case of do people see it i mean i think it's fundamentally it comes down to that at the end of the day so creativity yeah it makes a huge difference but you can create a wonderful ad and hide it with your media choices or you can create a wonderful ad and make sure everyone sees it very good point so if you so if you were given the choice between a really amazing bit of creative on a low attention platform versus a let's say average bit of creative on a high attention platform who would win that the latter interesting so media choice can make a dramatic difference it has a huge difference i mean one of the things i'll preface and orlando and i were talking a bit about this yesterday is you know we're using award level data so everything that's going in there is good so i'd imagine in the broader world the you know the the strength of creative will be wider whereas creative boundary also platform boundaries will always be the same and so but we saw even with these very strong ones how much of a difference it made with that so you'd imagine in the broader world of marketing where there's a lot of stuff that's not as good as what we tested you know the you know it'd be even even bigger in terms of the opportunity so one of the one of the advantages of this study is you know we've got media data attention data and we've got emotional scoring from system one does that mean you're able to actually see the impact that emotion has on the amount of attention that's achieved on different platforms yeah yeah we did basically so we saw a relationship between the two that you know emotional or strength of emotional reaction and attention were related and back to karen's points beforehand you know the the platform selection is the larger driver but it's like emotion is one of the things that can push it towards the top of that band so if there's a ceiling emotion is what's going to push it to the top of that ceiling in any given platform.

11:04And it's lovely how different data points connect, I think it's also known from Burnett and Field in terms of rational versus emotional campaigns. And, you know, if you're a big brand versus small brand, how that can help with the SOV. So it's good that, you know, all these things are getting together. Well, it wouldn't be a conversation with Orlando without referencing 17th century baroque art, would it? So can you explain what that might tell us about, I guess the question is, how do you create emotion to achieve the kind of effects that rob was well that was really what my section i suppose was was about you know but there's karen and rob did a brilliant job on the the media side of things and the canvas for the work and i described what do you put on the canvas as i opened and you know how do you create work with broad and popular appeal and so actually i started with a film reference but it was a scene you know between two people and something is revealed and i described this as having what 17th century artists in Rome would call morto e azione, so morto from movere, to move, and it's the stirring of the passions visibly in the face at an emotional turning point, you know, and there's an action associated with it.

12:12And often when something is revealed at the same time, an insight of some kind, you can amplify the force of that emotion. And often in great brand building advertising, that has something to do with the brand and what the brand is bringing to the story you know so i showed some examples of this i described how you know i sort of said i'm going to use art history but i'm also going to use psychology so i talked a bit about the presencing right hemisphere of the brain and how it's attuned to context to people to understanding the whole of any given scene and lived time it's better associated with narrative and metaphor and music and this you know we showed a couple of ads didn't from our set you know one that was was was very narrative and people were laughing you know and one that was very goal orientated and words on the screen and what we found was when we overlaid our emotional data on the business effect data is that it was these what i describe as right brain campaigns for broad beam attention that drove the biggest effects the most the most very large effects.

13:22And in line, actually, with what we found before with IPA data, working with PETA, remarkably consistent. And we found also that these right brain campaigns, they kind of work by increasing mental availability. So this helps them work in the longer term, lasting effects. But there are also some right brain campaigns that work particularly well in the short term, weren't there so you know they work now and into the future sort of present and future earnings you know it's possible to to do that and i guess i sort of wrap i tried to wrap everything the three strands together didn't we so you talked about you know how high attention media increase mental availability and business effects in your section indeed yeah karen talked about why that was and how to extend uh if you can extend and to the extent to which you can extend your attention through emotional work but of course emotion works to put things in memory too and that's an important part of brand building and its effects so i i sort of drew these three strands together and sort of concluding slide we showed we had we grouped our campaigns into So low emotion, creative, low attention media, sort of negative investment in extra share of voice showed that they were the ones with the poorest outcomes.

14:50And then when you improve your creative, but the other two vary, your media and your investment are still weak, it improves things, but only up to a point. You've still got to have high attention media and an investment behind it. And of course, what you really need, the third bar in this chart, the biggest bar, was all three. And that was the triple opportunity that we were talking about, really, the investment in high attention media, the emotive, creative and extra positive, extra share of voice. Just for anyone listening as well, who may not be familiar with the sort of left and right brains, what are the kind of features that create emotion and capture attention and lead to business results?

15:34Describe the difference between the left and right, just so anyone listening can understand. the types of you know so i they're in my books if anyone's interested but the right hemisphere broad beam attention is about really a scene the living a dis shorthand character incident place you could say expression in the face and body narrative metaphor humor music also these are the sorts of things sort of describes a general style of advertising which is more likely to engage and i showed some data to to reveal that and then the sort of mechanistic style of advertising so associated with performance advertising with words on the screen you know highly rhythmic soundtracks probably not much color just black and white visuals you know pounding you this kind of thing unless you are interested in the product or you've been primed somehow for to like the brand previously that kind of interesting advertising is just not interesting to people.

16:34Give me an example of both. What was the example you used in the presentation for... It was a Kit Kat ad that I used for the broad beam attention example. A couple of guys set in olden times trying to put a catapult together using a kind of Ikea plan. It wasn't Ikea, but you know what I mean. And having the problems to do with it, you know, and then take a break and everything's all right. That was a good example of this, you know, the frustration revealed through the body. The guy kicks the catapult and, you know, then they have a break. And then the other example was it was a Samsung ad from the set.

17:13And it was all about finding things in their ads. So it was very goal orientated. You know, if you can find a code in this ad, then we will give you a phone type thing. That's a very different style of advertising. Yeah, that's very, very helpful. and just come just to conclude what I'd love to get you know from each of you what would be the one tip from your presentation to to take away to as as marketers wanting to optimize because I guess if we think about ESOV what's amazing if you know pick pick the right right media with the right creative you know you can improve your ESOV relationship to to share of market so maybe I'll start with Rob.

17:51Yeah no problem so one of the things that that we'd seen with the data set that we had was that those who had negative ESOPs, so they're the campaigns that they kind of, they knew they didn't have enough money to invest, really, to drive brand growth. They all invested in lower attention platforms. And I had some people come up to me afterwards and say, actually, this is really true, but it was part that really resonated with them. So they have less money than they need, and then they invest it somewhere that is less effective. And so they get kicked twice, not enough money, and then the money you're spending, you're spending in the wrong place, which then means lower effects which then means next time when you go back and the CFO is saying actually didn't really work very well last time did it so no you're not having more budget and it can kind of lead to this destructive cycle so I think part of it is know your boundaries at the end of the day you know know where to invest don't be concerned about paying higher CPMs you know don't try and stretch your money further it's actually that thing that's quite a misnomer.

18:50And at the moment, that's important because marketing budgets are shrinking. And there's a risk that they'll be funneled into channels, but actually don't drive the growth that the brand requires at that time. I hadn't thought about when you have less money, or maybe earlier in your life cycle as well. I was doing a panel with someone from Vinted, which is an app for selling secondhand clothes. And they went on TV quite early. And of course, the panel was going, why'd you do that? And they said, well, because we had to. you know that was the only chance we were going to have of being able to compete was to was to put all you know put a big bet on that i thought it's quite uh quite enlightened of them so following your advice yeah yeah but one of the things that karen kind of when we were talking about it he said because you know when you go for a lower cpm you kind of think yeah it's cheaper right but then if you're not getting the attention that you need you need to deliver more impressions in order to that you need higher frequency actually your cpm is much much higher than you think it is so you could pay one higher one Exactly.

19:44You might only be getting 20 % of what you think you're going to get. I mean, genuinely, it's like mind blowing as well. Karen, tell me what would be your top tip for anyone listening? I mean, relate. I mean, you've talked a fair bit about the, you know, the relationships that we found. But I think my top tip would be to the listeners that the volume piece that we were talking about. So, you know, how you interact with a platform defines, sorry, how the user experience is designed defines how much attention the average person will pay. And you can't get away from that. So creative can't help deviate significantly.

20:22It's kind of within these boundaries, which Orlando also talked about. So my top tip would be, you know, really understand what a platform is capable of delivering, what these boundaries are, so that when you have a campaign that has this particular objective versus that particular objective, you know what you're dealing with, and then you can kind of fit all the pieces of the puzzle together. them. That makes so much sense. And design the creative for the limitations or potential of the platform, right? That is correct. So, you know, we talk a lot about low attention platforms, but there is a role to play for them in terms, but just not long form memory forming structural brand building type.

21:02So it just, just understand it and fit for format. Fit for format. There you go. That's a good, good soundbite there. Orlando, what would you say? What would be your top set for anyone thinking about the creative? Well, I mean, I kind of, perhaps that's how I concluded the presentation, actually, which was, forgive me, but in the 17th century, this hierarchy of genres emerged in painting and it denoted their value. And at the very top were paintings with narrative and people, metaphor, all of those things. At the very bottom were sort of close-up, still life paintings, and I couldn't help observing that this is exactly what we found to be true in advertising too, in terms of the type of advertising that captures and holds attention and generates an emotional response.

21:50And so I concluded, you know, well, perhaps we should be valuing advertising in the same way, that that kind of advertising with Moto Etsune, as I said, you know, is the advertising that has greater commercial value. So if you're an ad agency, you know, charge more for it. You really should because it's worth more. That would be welcomed by a lot of people on the Quasette, I think. And if you're an advertiser, you know, if you're looking for growth, then ask your agency for a bit more of it. Actually, if you're a media platform, you know, you should be creating visible, large visible canvases to allow this kind of work to play out on it.

22:28That's another way to look at it, actually, is how do the media platforms evolve the stage on which the creative work is shown? That's another way to look at it, isn't it, as well as optimising creative? Yes. So something of a challenge to throw out at the end there. Very good. Well, I'm glad we're talking opportunities this year. So that's good. Thank you so much. And if people would like to watch the presentation, where can they do that? That's an excellent question. I think Walk will probably make a recording available for anyone who signs up at some point. That's certainly what's happened before, isn't it?

22:59So they did last year. So look out for it. Well, we'll include the links in the show notes. Thank you all. Thank you so much. It's great to have all three of you on the show. And thank you for coming back. And best of luck. Thank you, John. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for listening to the Uncensored CMO. Hope you enjoyed that mini episode all the way from Cannes. Now, if you'd like to find out more about the Uncensored CMO, please go and do hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Or if you're watching on YouTube, hit subscribe there too. If you want to follow me, I'm over on Twitter at Uncensored CMO.

23:29And you can find me on LinkedIn, where I am under my normal name, John Evans. Thanks for watching and listening. I'll see you next time. Thank you.