Sky Media is looking to measure the effectiveness of TV advertising with a focus on a new kind of attention metric.
The ad sales arm of Sky, in collaboration with research consultancy Differentology, has unveiled an ADsorption Index with the goal of moving the attention debate on from “eyes on screen” to how ads are emotionally “absorbed” by viewers.
It is based on two pillars: how “involved” the audience is in the content, measured by how “focused, engrossed and captivated” they are; and how much “value” they place on what they are watching through measuring “passion and memorability”.
The different emotional states were defined and measured in research conducted during the development of the index.
“We’re really excited to be sharing our ADsorption Index with the industry,” said Sky Media director of planning Sarah Jones. “TV has always delivered high attention and impact, but absorption offers brands more insight into the viewing moments that matter for their target audience and gives media planners another lever to deliver competitive advantage.”
What is most ‘absorbing’?
The index identified drama and documentary shows as the most “absorbing” genres, along with sport and films.
However, different genres predictably have varying strengths: for example, documentaries deliver better metrics on audiences’ emotional states of “focused” and “engrossed”, whereas film is better for delivering audiences who are “captivated” and who find the content “memorable”.
Performance is also found to vary by platform, with broadcaster VOD identified as the most “absorbing”.
Time of day is another key factor, with consumers most “absorbed” with content in late evenings.
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Optimising towards ‘absorption’
However, it is not necessary to optimise solely towards high-absorption content, as Sky Media is keen to note both high- and low-attention contexts are important for different advertising aims.
While the former is crucial for message retention and is more likely to have a direct impact on consumer behaviour, the latter is important for building brand familiarity.
To better test the “absorption” model going forward, Sky Media is calling on advertisers to optimise their TV campaigns using the index.
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