What does attention actually tell us about whether advertising is working?
Pete Wallace, Managing Director EMEA at GumGum, explains why clicks remain a poor measure of advertising effectiveness and how attention can help marketers connect media exposure with real brand outcomes.
Pete shares how GumGum combines contextual signals, attention data, time, device and creative performance to predict the mindset of an audience. He brings this to life through GumGum’s work with the BBC and Havas on *Celebrity Traitors*, where targeting and creative changed as tension and excitement around the programme developed.
We also discuss why there is no universal number of seconds that guarantees attention, how creative testing can reveal when branding should appear, and why advertising needs to respect the environment in which it appears.
The conversation then moves into privacy, the value exchange between advertising and free content, the problem with ad tech companies using the same language, and why marketers need to ask more difficult questions about the technology behind their media plans.
Pete also reflects on moving from agency life into ad tech and leading teams across Europe, Japan and Australia, where different cultures require different approaches to pitching, testing and decision-making.
## In this episode, you will learn:
* Why attention can be more useful than clicks as a measure of advertising effectiveness
* How contextual advertising can predict consumer mindset without relying on personal identity
* How GumGum adapted targeting and creative during the BBC’s *Celebrity Traitors*
* Why every brand may require a different attention benchmark
* How creative attention data can improve branding and message placement
* Why advertising works best when it respects the surrounding content
* How marketers can test ad technology rather than accepting similar-sounding sales pitches
* What Pete has learned from leading teams across different international markets
## Timestamps
01:38 Pete’s journey from media agencies into ad tech
03:23 The difference between agency life and working in sales
05:33 What GumGum does and how the business has developed
06:00 Using data signals to predict consumer mindset
06:55 How GumGum worked on the BBC’s *Celebrity Traitors*
08:46 Why attention has always influenced media planning
09:25 Connecting attention to business and brand outcomes
10:21 How GumGum measures attention
11:15 Why there is no universal attention benchmark
11:23 Using attention data to improve creative execution
12:45 Matching advertising to the environment around it
13:34 Why brands are asking more questions about ad technology
14:33 Where GumGum fits within the modern media plan
14:40 Why marketers need greater digital and technical knowledge
15:12 Are marketers rigorous enough when testing media?
16:00 The problem with every ad tech company sounding the same
17:00 Why campaign learning needs to feed into future activity
17:42 Leading teams across Europe, Japan and Australia
18:23 How culture changes client expectations and ways of working
20:01 Balancing global consistency with local flexibility
21:23 What international markets can learn from one another
*The Cannes Sessions are brought to you in partnership with The Digital Voice.*
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