Nerd on the Street: Unpacking the Cannes Lions Buzz
At the 2024 Cannes Lions Festival, Jordan Weiers, our Senior Director of Partnerships & Business Development, took to the Croisette to chat with media professionals about digital media’s hottest topics—from the omnipresent discussions on privacy and AI to the far-reaching impact of attention metrics.
Check out what people had to say:
Q: Can attention metrics replace viewability?
A: “Viewability solved a problem that we had a while ago. Attention metrics are an upgrade, especially if you can optimize it towards outcomes…and with cookies going away—eventually, probably—people need to understand where they're buying, and this doesn’t rely on any identifiers, which is great." - Jana Jakovljevic, SVP Partnerships, Cognitiv
But not everyone shared Jana’s sentiment exactly. Jessica Stacy, VP Midwest at Seedtag, added, “I don't think that viewability will ever go away, but it's definitely complementary.”
Q: What does the industry need to walk the talk on?
A: “Sustainability. Lots of people talking the talk on that one and not seeing a lot of real investment decisions being made.” - Alicia Haynes, VP of Global Partnerships, Sharethrough
A: “In the last few years since all of the conversations about cookie depreciation have taken hold, there have been conversations about how we reexamine digital media metrics—the validity of them, how useful they are—but we're still talking about clicks!" - Neala Brown, SVP, Strategy & Insights, Teads
A: “Collaboration…when it comes to sustainability, brand safety issues, brand suitability, child safety on social media…if we collaborated more as an industry versus trying to solve them to get credit ourselves, we would already have solved a lot of them by now.” - Annalise Curvelo, VP of Partnerships, Sightly
Sounds like industry professionals are ready for genuine commitment and evolution rather than just lip service.
Q: Attention metrics: Fad or here to stay?
A: "Viewability has become an archaic metric that isn't necessarily driving to real outcomes, and people and brands are looking for something deeper and more meaningful, and attention is the solution for that." - Alicia Haynes, VP of Global Partnerships, Sharethrough
Q: What is the least-talked-about benefit of attention metrics?
A: “Ad waste. As a consumer, if I am looking at an article and I see an ad that doesn't necessarily make sense to me or is not something that I'm interested in, I'm not looking at that ad…So we want to try to eliminate that waste. And we do that by making sure that ads are in the right place, they're getting the attention that they deserve, and that they’re being seen by the right people.” - Jessica Stacy, VP Midwest, Seedtag
A: “Making the attention metrics custom to the client and the KPI.” - Jana Jakovljevic, SVP Partnerships, Cognitiv
A: “Attention metrics do a wonderful job of helping us to understand how we can effectively shrink a funnel, and when we want to bring a user from their initial understanding and love of our product to actually becoming a purchaser, we have to do a much more effective job of shrinking that journey." - Dan Scherer, US Partnerships & Business Development, Onetag
These insights highlight the practical advantages of attention metrics, from reducing advertising waste to customizing your attention strategy for specific client KPIs with solutions like Adelaide’s Flight Control.
Q: What’s your advice to companies just getting started with attention metrics?
A: “Have a learning agenda, test, test, test, talk about outcomes and tie them to outcomes, and then have a plan for what it is you want to do with them.” - Neala Brown, SVP, Strategy & Insights, Teads
Our conversations at Cannes highlight a significant shift in advertising when it comes to media quality measurement. Attention isn’t just a buzzword—it’s ushering in a new era where precision and bottom-line outcomes are central to success (but we already knew that).
Thanks to Jordan for sparking these lively discussions, and a huge shout-out to all our partners who contributed their insights!