Advertisers can evaluate the true cost of attention across (visual) media by calculating an ‘attentive CPM’ – the cost of generating a thousand seconds of attention, says Lumen’s Mike Follett.

Why it matters

• This approach means visual attention to advertising can be treated as a commodity – to be consistently measured, graded, priced and traded.
• Not all TV ads get looked at, but when they do, they generate a lot of attention; YouTube ads almost always get looked at, but for less time than a 30-second TV ad.
• While TV looks expensive on the basis of its CPM, it...