Spotlight on Innovation: Highlights from Adelaide’s AU Connection Summit

Adelaide's AU Connection: Attention Ecosystem Summit brought together industry partners and clients to celebrate this year's triumphs and examine the future of the attention movement.

Our very own Director of Partnerships, Jordan Weiers, shares his key takeaways from each session.

The AU: Past, Present, and Future

Perry Papadopoulos, Adelaide’s VP of Product, captivated us with the AU model’s historical evolution and its “bleeding-edge” applications across cinema, audio, and digital out-of-home (DOOH). Our mission? To give partners a sneak peek into what’s new in the AU universe...AUniverse? 

Perry announced upcoming product launches, including AU Audit for publishers and AU Planner for advertisers, two advanced planning tools that support sellers and buyers in making smart media decisions.
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Turning Attention Into Opportunity

Teads is a trailblazer in the attention arena, and watching our partnership flourish has been truly rewarding. Having a front-row seat to their journey, I’ve witnessed firsthand their mastery of incorporating attention metrics into nearly every facet of their business—from media quality measurement and planning to activation. 

Neala Brown, SVP of Insights & Analytics, showcased the evolution of Teads’ attention practice. She revealed that high-attention placements have led to impressive outcomes across the funnel for clients—think a 54% surge in unaided awareness and a 100% increase in checkout actions. Crucially, she walked us through how Teads is moving from analysis to action with curated inventory packages.
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Programmatic AU: Where the Rubber Meets the Road

You know it, I know it: deploying attention metrics can be tricky. That’s why Adelaide is laser-focused on streamlining and simplifying activation for agencies, brands, and publishers.

Adelaide’s Director of Product & Client Success, Karl Sjulsen, presented our latest and greatest programmatic case studies. It was remarkable to see the sheer breadth of our progress—from high-AU prebid segments, private marketplaces, and custom bidding algorithms with brands to our growing number of integrations with leading DSPs and SSPs.
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AU All-In: A Panel with Adobe and PubMatic

I had the pleasure of moderating a panel with two leaders who have truly brought AU to new heights: Sam Marc from PubMatic and Sean LeBlanc from Adobe Advertising. Our discussion centered around their attention toolkits, including Adobe’s first-to-market InstantAU and PubMatic’s high-AU PMPs.

InstantAU is a game-changer. It enables advertisers to apply attention measurement tags to their campaigns with a single click, fueling integrated reporting and readily available insights. High-attention marketplaces allow publishers to curate high-quality media inventory. As noted by Sam, clients have seen impressive results from PubMatic PMPs, including an 18% increase in tune-in for a major sports league.
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Prepare for Takeoff: Planning with Adelaide Flight Control

Attention is just a vanity metric if it’s not driving real results.

Our Director of Analytics, Ben Lowe, introduced Flight Control, a planning tool that’s all about striking the perfect balance between media quality and frequency. Using Flight Control, advertisers can build high-impact campaigns right out of the gate and identify the optimal AU required to hit brand-specific KPIs. It’s about ensuring AU is not just a metric but an actionable solution for improving full-funnel business outcomes.
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Unlocking Attention: A Fireside Chat with Havas

To wrap up the morning, our CEO Marc Guldimann had a fireside chat with Havas Media’s Parvati Vaish, who is nothing short of an attention expert. 

Havas has worked with Adelaide for over three years now and, unsurprisingly, has racked up quite a few attention case studies. Notably, the agency conducted one of the first campaigns proving the connection between high-AU media and outcomes.

Parvati highlighted a crucial trend: advertisers’ desire to be more choosy about ad placements to reduce waste from low-quality impressions. According to Parvati, attention metrics help advertisers target high-quality media that drives tangible impact, decreasing the likelihood of over-frequencied audiences and wasted impressions. Naturally, Marc couldn’t agree more. 

A huge shout-out to all the partners and clients who joined us—your enthusiasm, engagement, and vital contributions to the attention movement are inspiring. I can’t wait to see who will take the stage next year and the amazing success stories we’ll share.