Spark Media, which are members of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute (EBI), welcomed Dr Virginia Beal, Senior Marketing Scientist, and Mike Follet, MD of Lumen, to an event held at the Bryanston Country Club on 18 September.
There was a total of three invite-only seminars held on 11 September in Durban, 13 September in Cape Town and 18 September in Johannesburg. This year’s seminar focused on ‘Making Media Work for Brand Growth’ and ‘How Eye Tracking Reveals The Reality of Attention Received By Advertising.’
Beal, who specialises in media research, and investigates how people use media, the implication on advertising effectiveness and scheduling, discussed the essentials of media consumer behaviour, unpacking how marketers can optimise their media scheduling budgets, based on empirical evidence.
Beal suggested that brands focus on: who they want to reach; when they want to reach them; where they will place their adverts and how to spend their media budget.
Gill Randall, joint CEO of Spark Media said, ’As members of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for the last 16 years, we’ve had unbelievable access to a wealth of research on consumer and media behaviour. It’s through this valuable membership that we’re able to share contemporary global and local insights with our clients and partners.’
Follet, MD of technology company Lumen, gave a presentation on why attention is a key metric you can use to avoid wasted ad spend and also elaborated on how brands and companies can use eye tracking to understand what people actually engage with when reading content online or in print.
Key takeaways from Follet’s presentation:
• Print advertising is a better way of reaching and keeping people interested.
• Time is crucial, especially online – make sure the viewability is great as there could be 20-second attention interval received on digital while it can be 30 seconds in print but twice as higher on TV.
• Size does make a difference – billboards get attention faster and get noticed longer.
• Video adverts really work – if you force people to watch videos, they will watch the videos (show the audience both the content and the advert).
• Creativity is key.
• Support your media (print, digital and TV).
• Invest in time rather than in viewability.
