Offering buyers a threshold
TVision uses eye-tracking data on 15,000 consenting people to determine average video attention rates, said Krim. By matching this eye-tracking data with behavioral data, it can extrapolate conclusions about how consumers react to different creative concepts, so buyers can purchase inventory that’s more likely to capture viewer attention.
ShowHeroes Group, which provides video technology solutions to advertisers, has been running its first attention-informed campaigns in partnership with TVision. These campaigns let buyers see average attention scores across inventory types.
“[It’s] in line with the way we now work with viewability, where every single brief says you have to hit a minimum of 70% viewability as a threshold,” said Steven Filler, who oversees U.K. operations for ShowHeroes. “It’s not a guarantee, but it’s more [that a] campaign will optimize toward exceeding that goal.”
Guarantees are different in CTV
Some web publishers like The Weather Company have established digital attention guarantees for digital and online video campaigns, but that’s less common in the CTV space, said Sarah Lewis, ShowHeroes’ global CTV director.
“Guaranteeing [is] very difficult in CTV because, ultimately, you can never guarantee anything,” she said. “Unless we have literal cameras in every household.”
Just like in linear advertising, there’s no way to truly find out if a viewer leaves the room while the commercial airs, added John Rogers, vp of business development at adtech firm Nexxen. However, Telly announced in its NewFronts presentation that its system can now read whether viewers are watching or not.
Instead, ShowHeroes uses TVision’s attention data to buy CTV placements that are more likely to hold viewers’ attention and to reassure buyers of inventory quality and performance standards.
Some adtech firms such as TripleLift currently sell attention-guaranteed CTV inventory, but it’s not necessarily guaranteeing eyeballs. The vendor works with Adelaide to guarantee its inventory meets a specific quality threshold.
Adapting TV campaigns on the fly
CTV buys encourage marketers to iterate, said Provinciali. The planning flexibility, not reliant on an upfront buy, lets buyers activate different creative concepts in shorter timeframes, and learn what messaging resonates with viewers.
According to Provinciali, if a marketer running a 12-week campaign were to discover that their creative is underperforming on attention by the two-week mark, they could theoretically replace the creative in enough time to meet campaign goals.