Seeking brand endurance? Consider attention snacking
Opinion
Lots of short attention ‘snacks’ can feed your attention appetite just as effectively as a large single serving. This is where OOH excels, says Route’s CEO.
Recently, I was chatting to a pal who is in training for his first ultramarathon. After the obligatory talk of his trainers of choice (Adidas Terrex Agravic Speed Ultra) and where he finds the time to actually train for running 100k (basically zero sleep and a powerful head-torch), the talk turned to his current nutritional plan.
This was interesting to me as it requires him to forego the conventional wisdom of eating three meals a day. Instead, he’s adopted a plan which sees him eat “little and often” around his training sessions. He’s now having 2-3 small meals every three hours to provide the energy and endurance he needs to achieve his goals.
In reading the recent attention study from Newsworks and Lumen, I was reminded of this conversation and thought that attention to media draws parallels to alternative nutritional plans.
Newsworks’ new attention research categorises various media on a scale of high to low attention. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it positions news brands high on the list alongside attention big-hitters TV and cinema, whereas out-of-home media (OOH) features relatively low on the scale with social media and pure play internet ads.
This, of course, makes perfect sense. News brands benefit from contextual relevance and halo effects from the content around which the ads are inserted (as do posters and screens, but that’s a different study).
OOH is generally prone to shorter transient exposures because people see the ads as they go about their day.
The reason this is great for news brands at first glance is that attention time is highly correlated with brand outcomes – i.e., more attention = more good things happening for the brands being advertised.
Source: Newsworks (2025)
However, what this study fails to acknowledge on the surface is the “snacking and stacking” nature of attention.
Work done by Havas in 2024, also with Lumen, demonstrated a cumulative effect of attention. Or put another way, aggregate (total) attention time is crucial for brand campaigns. It shows that lots of short attention ‘snacks’, can feed your attention appetite just as effectively as a large single serving.
Much like getting in a pre-run energy boost, some mid-run carb gels and a post-run recovery smoothie, you can build your brand nutrition levels to ensure that longer-term brand endurance.
Source: Lumen and Havas Brand Uplift (2024)
What this means from a planning perspective is that you need to plan in a way that effectively and efficiently builds frequency. In doing this, you gain aggregate attention time and so produce more positive brand outcomes.
This is where OOH can excel. With over 400k posters and screens to tap into, brands can get their message far and wide, reaching people regularly and across multiple locations.
This map shows the geographic distribution of the 64,910 posters and screens in the London BARB region – remember this does not include the 131,478 tube, tram or rail carriage ads, 23,869 bus ads and 5,754 taxi ads that are not in a fixed location and so don’t fit neatly on the map. With OOH, reach and frequency build and as such, attention time build is eminently feasible.
Source: Route Research 2025
Even just selecting 500 randomly allocated frames from across London BARB (c.0.2% of total inventory) – without any curated planning – and running a campaign on these for four weeks in October will deliver c.48m impacts and reach over 50% of the London BARB population an average of 7.6 times. This demonstrates the strength of OOH as a medium at delivering on both reach and frequency.
Even a non-optimised (or planned) campaign such as this comfortably delivers within the 30-60m “impressions” range needed to drive a statistically significant sales uplift, according to Les Binet and Will Davis’s recent ROI work. There is considerable scope to improve and optimise this, working with OOH specialist planners and buyers to curate attention time through frequency.
On paper, a well-planned OOH campaign can deliver sufficient frequency to ensure the brand achieves sufficient attention time to deliver on campaign objectives.
Again, it looks a lot like my pal’s nutritional plan – with energy bursts little and often – albeit he’s balancing a creative mix of carbs, proteins and whole grains, rather than exposures to digital screens and posters, on roadside, buses/taxis and in transport and retail hubs.
This then begs the question about effective frequency and campaign wearout. How much is too much? Two key pieces of research are noteworthy.
Firstly, System1’s Compound Creativity demonstrates the value of creative consistency and notes that people don’t really get bored with (good) ads, only marketers do; and work by WPP Media and Gorilla In the Room investigated optimal frequency for OOH ads and found the highest levels of emotional response at 12 exposures.
While everyone loves a comforting Sunday Roast in the pub, optimal nutritional balance and energy equilibrium can also be achieved through many small, high-protein, high-fibre meals with intermittent carb loading. Even if that doesn’t sound quite as appetising, then at least you’re likely to see OOH ads on your way to the boozer, and again on your way home.
Euan Mackay is the CEO of Route