The Economist has launched ‘Attention Buy’, a new model that guarantees and trades on reader attention.
The Economist is the first publisher to offer marketers the opportunity to buy slices of user attention cross-platform – in-app and online.
The publisher’s “attention buy” model will see it charge advertisers only for display ad impressions that generate over five seconds of “active” view time.
Scrolling up and down a page, typing on a keyboard or using the mouse will all count as active reader behaviours.
It will work with analytics partners Chartbeat and Moat Analytics to ensure stats are correct.
The ads don’t yet extend to video, but that will come later.
In-app, The Economist already offers marketers a cumulative time spent guarantee of 250 hours – up to 750 hours in some cases – viewing a full-page ad on The Economist’s digital editions.
“Attention metrics and viewability are certainly a step in the right direction, but they are merely a first step in the journey towards trading on user attention. Viewability is just a proxy for what marketers desire the most – their target audience’s attention”, said Ashwin Sridhar, Global head of revenue for Economist digital products.
Nicolas Sennegon, Global MD, Chief Revenue Officer of The Economist Group’s Media Businesses said, “Measuring views has been an important development in the advertising industry, but guaranteeing active user attention goes a step further towards measuring the effectiveness of an ad. Knowing that an ad is viewable is good, but knowing that users are paying attention to your ad is even better.” Sennegon continued, “The Economist is proud to be the first to offer this valuable and unique option to our clients.”Robin
The Economist is offering its clients two User Attention Guarantee package deals.