The Guardian Launches Attention-Based Packages and Joins Adelaide’s AU Ecosystem
New York, United States; June 11, 2026 – Adelaide, the leader in attention-based media quality measurement and activation, welcomed the Guardian to its AU Ecosystem following an audit of the publisher’s inventory using Adelaide’s AU metric. The audit found that the Guardian’s placements perform above market benchmarks, supporting the publisher’s launch of new high-attention advertising packages that give advertisers a clearer way to buy against media quality across the Guardian’s inventory.
According to the audit, Guardian inventory scored 16% above Adelaide’s benchmarks, with news environments among the strongest-performing formats. These findings will inform how the publisher structures and prices its inventory, grouping higher-attention placements into curated deals that give advertisers clearer visibility into media quality at the point of purchase. The Guardian’s high-AU packages will be available through its commercial team, with attention-based reporting included as part of campaign delivery.
The launch also brings the Guardian into Adelaide’s AU Ecosystem, a network of publishers and platforms helping advertisers transact on attention-based media quality. Through the program, buyers can plan, transact, and optimize around attention through familiar workflows, while sell-side partners can use AU to create more consistent, quality-based offerings.
“Adelaide’s AU metric gives us a more transparent way to demonstrate the value of our inventory,” said Sarah Badler, Chief Advertising Officer, North America, the Guardian. “It allows us to bring our top-performing placements together into packages that are easier to buy against, making media quality more actionable for advertisers while giving us a consistent basis for representing that value commercially.”
"News inventory has been penalized by brand safety frameworks that have little to do with whether an ad placement actually works," said Marc Guldimann, Co-founder & CEO, Adelaide. "Those approaches have diverted spend away from high-quality environments on the open web while creating a false sense of safety. The Guardian’s audit shows what advertisers may be leaving on the table when they rely on poor proxies for quality. Bringing AU into its commercial offering allows brands to target higher-quality media while enabling the Guardian to price its inventory more accurately.”
Adelaide AU is an omnichannel media quality metric that predicts a placement’s likelihood of capturing attention and driving business impact, based on a combination of placement signals, eye-tracking data, and full-funnel outcomes.
Guardian Media Group is one of the world’s largest and most-trusted quality newsbrands, publisher of the Guardian, theguardian.com and the Guardian app. Founded over 200 years ago, the Guardian now serves audiences through five editions: Australia, Europe, International, UK and US. With no billionaire owner, the Guardian is renowned for its fearless investigative journalism, holding power to account and amplifying the stories that need to be told. Its independent ownership structure means it is free from political or commercial influence. Today, millions of people worldwide choose the Guardian’s journalism every day and more than two million readers across 180 countries have supported the Guardian’s work. Audiences can listen to the Guardian’s top-rated podcasts, watch its award-winning documentaries and interact with its growing digital portfolio, from a premium live news app to the recipe app Feast.