South Africa, while battling a myriad of local challenges, is directly affected by geopolitical events, most notably in the country’s notoriously volatile currency. The crisis-prone global macroeconomic environment demands that businesses must drive efficiency and actively pursue the highest return on investment (ROI) for every rand spent. Yet, despite this, up to 85% of digital marketing spend is wasted, according to world-renowned media scientist Dr Karen Nelson-Field.

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Field, who owns Amplified, the global leader in research, measurement and software solutions for human attention in media, has, in partnership with Connect and The Up&Up Group, recently completed the first-ever attention study in South Africa that delivered human data on how digital advertising is actually consumed in the country.

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The team at Amplified have built proprietary software that leverages machine learning for advanced analysis of metrics such as tracking eye focus, body language cues, emotional responses and more. This data is layered onto data delivered by the actual advertisement and platform because the study is conducted on live campaigns. Being scalable, Field and her team have built the largest robust dataset of quantifiable metrics from around the world.

“The result of the study in South Africa was not surprising,” explains Field.

South Africa tracks the global norm that 85% of digital ad inventory fails to capture even 2.5 seconds of attention, which is a critical threshold for driving memory and purchase intent. “We have quantified the cost of dull advertising, the kind that doesn’t hold any attention, to be at around 43 cents to the dollar. Now, would you be comfortable with your phone battery being on 40% with nowhere to charge it? Or would you be getting peak internet performance if your WiFi was only operating at 40%? No sane business would want that kind of leakage in today’s economy,” says Field.

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The Up&Up Group, which operates across the continent, is made up of various creative companies. Chief Strategy Officer for the group, Robert Grace says the results are paradigm shifting. “Most businesses put up a significant amount of their advertising spend into programmatic media buying, because the metrics lead you to believe you’re having impact. No one is implying that programmatic is dead. What we are saying is that the world has evolved and to keep up, brands need to elevate their digital media strategies too. It’s a business decision,” says Grace.

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The Up&Up Group’s media agency Connect, which is known as the attention agency, partnered on the study by running the testing on some of its own clients’ digital advertising. The participating clients were MTN, Standard Bank, Woolworths and Spur Corporation.

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Scott Reinders, Chief Operating Officer at Connect, says: “The big piece of news here is that South Africa tracks other countries closely. Marketers often emphasise local cultural and economic nuances, and adjust campaigns accordingly, yet South Africa has almost identical attention metrics to other markets from Sweden to India. Regardless of market, income, gender or race, attention is a truly global metric. This predictability levels the playing field, and the Group’s four clients – who are the only brands in the country so far who have this deep visibility into the performance of their marketing spend – have now seen, it enables faster rollout of global best practice to fight for every second of attention.”

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Attention revolution

“People often use terms such as revolution based almost entirely on an emotive belief about something. Our full technology stack that includes software for data ingestion, ML for processing and comprehensive models for analysis, enables us to confidently call out the truth: We are in the midst of an attention revolution, backed up by huge amounts of robust data and analysis,” says Field.

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Head of Operations at Amplified, Bec Brookes, explains that the data has proven that attention is not cultural, rather it is coded into the actual platforms themselves through their user experience. It sets not only the boundaries of attention, she says, but also where and how likely it is to occur.

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“While the platform sets the range, creative elements ultimately decide where attention sits within that range. Our data has confirmed, yet again, that high-arousal emotions drive more attention. However if there isn’t a brandable moment within that moment of attention, that attention is often gifted to competitors – because peoples’ brains are hardwired to fill in the blanks. If people don’t recognise your brand while paying attention, they will often link your ad to your competitors who have built a memory association before, or better than, you.”

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What can brands do in their new fight for every second of attention? Field says a good place to start is with four important steps, all of which prove that creativity elevates just about everything.

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1. Unexpectedness

Creative, and memorable, brands break from tradition and go beyond expectations. She referenced Spec-Savers who ran an advertisement at Sydney International Airport saying: Welcome to Melbourne.

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2. Brand cues

Brand distinctiveness should be present in everything you do. It does not have to be the logo, but it can be the structure of the communication, colours used, a motif. Remember Red Bull's wings?

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3. Emotion

Emotion is the gatekeeper to memory retention and attention.

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4. Consistency

By repeating band assets over time you become recognisable and memorable. When there is uncertainty in the minds of your target audience, they will likely attribute your ad to your largest competitor.

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