Written by Steve Boehler with Karen Nelson-Field
Attention is an advertising topic that was big in the “olden days”. Modern research methods have brought the topic back with gusto in the past decade.
Dr. Karen Nelson-Field’s research and her 2020 book The Attention Economy and How Media Works has been a wakeup call to marketers everywhere. Her latest book this past year, The Attention Economy: A Category Blueprint, is a must read for senior executives, marketers and anyone that creates advertising or plans and buys media.
Attention is a topic that we expect will explode in importance this year, and Dr. Nelson-Field’s new book provides critical background to what is coming. Given the stakes involved for advertisers and their agencies, we caught up with Karen to learn more and share that learning.
One of the things I found fascinating was your “hierarchy of attention” and the notion that attention is a result of a number of elements that impact each other sequentially. I believe the flow was: Device > Platform > Format > Context > Demographic > Creative. There are many moving pieces there! Have you or anyone else taken the learning from your book to present a case to the world about how they should think about best practices for specific tactics? It seems like the ingredients are there that could lead to guidance for tactical success.
Karen: To be honest, all the insights are in the book for people to take and apply as needed. Our job isn’t to prescribe how to build the best YouTube ad—that depends on numerous variables, such as the size of the brand and its specific objectives. The book is a culmination of everything I’ve learned, and, as you said, all the ingredients are there. While it does include some practical advice, the real application of that knowledge ultimately lies with the client. It varies depending on their goals—whether it’s related to media planning, creative development, or campaign optimization.
At Amplified Intelligence, we specialize in that kind of tailored application. For instance, we create roadmaps for companies looking to reduce wastage or for those struggling to see growth from their current media buys but can’t pinpoint why. That kind of work is too complex to capture in a book because every client’s situation is unique. I could work with ten different customers, and the solutions for their objectives would be ten entirely different approaches.

Dr. Karen Nelson-Field, on stage, with everyone’s attention
In the book, you share some stories about agencies that have been experimenting with attention metrics. Beyond experimentation, have you seen any companies or agencies routinely using attention metrics to plan and buy media? I know that sounds like a funny question to ask, given that you’ve spent so much time in this space, but in our work at Mercer Island Group we don’t see attention regularly factored into agency pitches or client media plans.
Karen: That makes sense. Agencies are trying, but it’s tough. As service-based businesses, they’re so decentralized that operationalizing new ways of working is incredibly challenging. Advocates like Chrissie Hanson (OMD), John Waite (Havas), and Richard Kirk (EssenceMediacom) are doing amazing work and leading the charge, but it remains a difficult journey for agencies.
What I’m seeing now is brands stepping up, and that’s a critical shift. Agencies have been driving the agenda for some time, but the mantle seems to be passing to brands. Brands are pushing for faster change, and taking the lead in making attention-based strategies a priority.
Why is it so hard to operationalize attention?
Karen: The challenge lies in the sheer breadth of areas attention touches. We talk about the “Fab Four”: creative strategy, media planning, media verification, and optimization. Attention isn’t confined to one domain—it spans multiple parts of the business. So, where do you start? Which problem do you prioritize? For agencies, juggling these different touchpoints can be overwhelming.
When done well, integrating attention can transform an entire business structure. Many start with media planning, which is also my passion area. The metrics we develop have the potential to make reach equal again. Richard Kirk’s work on adjusting reach provides compelling evidence of how this changes the game, driving efficiency, effectiveness, ROI, and even profit. Rather than using attention solely as a predictor of outcomes, it becomes a signal to address the fundamental problem: reach is not equal.
The ripple effects are incredible, but it’s not easy. Many organizations operate with systems that have been in place for 30 years or more. It’s not a simple matter of plugging in a new approach and expecting it to integrate seamlessly across thousands—or even hundreds of thousands—of employees. However, the data and products we have today are actionable. Alongside a few other industry leaders, we’ve prioritized data quality, built APIs for easy integration, and maintained a commitment to transparency. Change is happening.
It’s important to remember that “attention” as a category has only emerged seriously in the last three to four years. Transforming decades-old systems, models, and technology takes time. But the momentum is there, and the impact is undeniable.
I’m still a bit surprised that the giant media agencies have not made more progress in operationalizing attention…
Karen: Being a holding company in today’s climate is challenging—they’re feeling the strain. As service businesses, making systemic changes is no easy feat. That’s why I admire the few standout media agency executives who’ve taken bold steps. They’ve put their jobs on the line, advocating for change and pushing their organizations to try new approaches. It’s a brave move, but it’s also a big ask for a service business to fundamentally shift how it operates.
This is why I believe the next wave of innovation will come from the brand side. Increasingly, brands are telling their agencies, “We want amplified data.” This demand is reshaping the conversation and accelerating progress. When brands take the lead, they fast-track change across the ecosystem.
Your work in attention makes it clear that brands are not getting the impact they think they are getting from their media investment. How can a marketer prepare their organization for that realization, that they haven’t been getting what they thought they were getting?
Karen: Let’s face it—talking about change due to negative consequences isn’t fun. Trust me, I’ve been on this bandwagon for 10 years. But the easiest way to embrace it is to dip your toe in and see the difference for yourself.
What we’re building isn’t arbitrary—it’s a new, better form of measurement. And when measurement changes, it has ripple effects on organizations and their consistency. To your point, an agency might boast to a major client, “We just bought a billion impressions—aren’t we clever?” Then I come along and reveal that 75% of those impressions received no attention. Suddenly, only a quarter of that billion impressions holds any real value. That’s not a fun conversation.
But where it gets exciting is when they try attention metrics and see real results. What I call “meaty” proof—evidence of genuine business impact, not just marketing metrics. That’s where the shift happens, and it’s incredibly rewarding.
Any vendor can claim they’ll change your media mix and boost recall. But for me, the real question is: “Did it improve your profitability?” At Amplified Intelligence, our data is directly tied to outcomes. We provide marketers with the kind of “meaty proof” that the C-Suite demands—evidence that better attention translates into tangible business results.
When outcomes are clear and compelling, everyone wins. That’s our mission: to uncover the gap between perception and reality, identify wastage, and flip it on its head. By doing so, we reveal the true value of “real” reach and help businesses unlock their full potential.
Attention “thinking” is clearly critical to success and the task of adopting attention metrics into a marketing ecosystem is relatively significant. There’s a lot of work to be done here! The biggest companies and the biggest agencies have bigger resource benches to throw at changes like this. But most of the world isn’t those folks. Most of the world is mid-market and smaller firms. What recommendations, if any, do you have for mid-market shops and smaller companies that read the book, and think, yeah, I should be doing something with attention to advance my business.
Karen: Creative is likely the simplest starting point for brands looking to leverage attention metrics, especially when considering how attention varies across platforms. If this resonates, have them call me—we’ve identified this gap too.
The biggest opportunity lies with mid-size businesses, often categorized as challengers. These brands, which can least afford to ignore attention metrics, have the most to gain. Challenger brands face a unique form of double jeopardy in the attention economy. Smaller budgets often prevent them from investing in active attention buys—premium formats and platforms that demand higher costs. This lack of investment leads to more inattention or distraction, which hits smaller brands harder since their distinctive assets are less established or recognizable.
For these brands, the upside of using attention metrics strategically is massive. By embracing attention-focused planning, they can maximize the impact of every dollar spent. And we have some exciting news coming in the new year specifically for these challenger brands. Stay tuned.
Who in a mid-sized or smaller agency should be most aggressive about becoming knowledgeable and more adept about attention thinking?
Karen: Chief Strategy Officers are uniquely positioned to champion attention metrics. They oversee how the entire business operates and ensure it is future-facing and ready to adapt. While planners might play a key role, it’s the CSOs who have the broader perspective to identify underperforming areas, ask what needs improvement, and determine how these changes enhance customer relationships.
By focusing on attention, CSOs can drive systemic improvements across the business. They’re the ones with the strategic oversight to ensure attention becomes a core part of the company’s roadmap for success.
Who should lead the effort of paying more attention to attention on the client side? You were making a good case earlier that clients are going to have to be driving this stuff.
Karen: On the client side, the pressure is immense. CMOs are bearing the brunt of inefficiencies, declining profitability, and ad dollars that no longer deliver the promised ROAS. They’re tasked with creating business-driving campaigns but often lack visibility into how ads are actually delivered and received. It’s not their fault—imagine spending $10 million only to see a lower return than a competitor spending the same amount. The disconnect is frustrating and, frankly, unsustainable.
CMOs are uniquely positioned to start this conversation because their jobs are on the line. CEOs want answers about profitability and growth, but the relationship between ad spend and growth has flipped—leaving many CMOs struggling to provide clear solutions.
To change this, CMOs need to focus on building distinctive assets, driving memory structures, and preparing the next generation of buyers to connect with their brands. These fundamentals are harder to achieve as brand growth slows—just look at Peter Field’s work for evidence. This is where attention metrics come in: they provide the clarity and insight needed to bridge the gap between ad spend and results.
The conversation must start with the CMO, but it cannot stop there. They need to escalate this issue to the CEO and involve procurement to ensure systemic change. By doing so, they can realign ad strategies with profitability and long-term growth.
You made this critical point in the book: that the platforms train people to use the platforms the way the platforms want to be used. Therefore, to win, somebody needs to teach marketers how to game those platforms to their highest utility.
Karen: There are two critical dynamics at play: the obvious and the less obvious. The obvious challenge is that when distraction occurs, advertising dollars are wasted on impressions that are not being seen. Ads that aren’t optimized for specific platforms fail to capture attention, leaving marketers struggling to justify their investment. To address this, marketers need to tailor their strategies to each platform’s unique characteristics. But this raises key questions: How do you effectively game the platform for maximum utility? Should you prioritize the first two seconds? Does the creative need to be adapted or completely reimagined?
The less obvious challenge is that our current media measurement systems fail to account for inattention. Traditional metrics like reach and frequency don’t capture the significant loss of value from ads that are unseen or ignored, creating a hidden inefficiency in campaign performance. The cost of distraction and inattention also differs by platform, meaning some platforms inherently lose more attention than others. Marketers must focus on identifying formats and platforms that deliver the most attention—both in terms of reach and time—to maximize attention volume for every dollar spent. Addressing both challenges requires a new mindset: one that prioritizes not just delivering ads but ensuring they truly capture and hold attention. Only then can marketers close the gap between investment and impact.
Attention is a hugely important topic and your 2020 book really helped frame its importance. Tell us a little bit about why this past year was the right time for the follow-up book, The Attention Economy: A Category Blueprint?
Karen: Steve, the answer is that “Attention” is still an unfinished topic. With this book, it was important for me to set the tone for what the category should look like. When a new category emerges (particularly in digital advertising), it often attracts bad actors more focused on commercialization and selling out than on building something meaningful. In contrast, a group of us are committed to ensuring the industry moves in the right direction, delivers success for customers, and avoids repeating past mistakes.
This book serves two purposes: first, to share what I’ve learned about attention, and second, to lay the groundwork for the next phase of measurement. This next phase needs clear rules around data quality, validation, and the framework for an enduring attention economy currency. That’s why I called it A Category Blueprint.
Oh, and there’s more to come! We remain transparent about new learnings and metrics, and I’m preparing to launch something soon. While I can’t reveal too much just yet, it’s a natural evolution of what’s in the book and has the potential to reshape industry thinking—and even textbooks.
What’s the elevator speech on who should be hiring your firm, Amplified Intelligence?
Karen: Wow, that’s a big question. Anyone looking to reduce wasted ad dollars. Whether you’re a brand or an agency, if you want your brand to grow without spending more, we’re here to help. We work with anyone who feels their ad dollars aren’t delivering like they used to, who can’t afford to spend more, or who wants to uncover wastage and learn how to spend smarter.
The reality is that we can’t change how humans pay attention. The idea that better creative alone will drive more attention doesn’t hold up because the way we engage with platforms like Facebook or TikTok is shaped by their design—marketers can’t override that. While minor tweaks to viewer experiences happen, the core behavior remains largely the same.
The key to improving outcomes is understanding where wastage is, how humans interact with these platforms, and building strategies that align with this reality. That’s where we come in.
So the folks that should hire Amplified Intelligence are the folks that want to get waste out of the system or need a better return from their investment. What are the most likely things your team would do for them?
Karen: We would set them up with a proof of concept. This might involve creative testing to see how their ads perform in real-time, across actual formats. Alternatively, we can set up ongoing measurement that provides real-time insights into how their ads are performing across the programmatic ecosystem. With this data, we guide marketers on the changes needed to reduce wastage. Within hours they can be saving money.
I understand you will be sharing big news that will dramatically impact the attention space early this year? What can you tell us?
Karen: The news is industry changing in magnitude. That’s all I can say right now… but stay tuned!

“There’s more to come! I’m preparing to launch something soon…it’s a natural evolution of what’s in the book and has the potential to reshape industry thinking—and even textbooks.”
Dr. Karen Nelson-Field, a prominent media science researcher, has helped transform media measurement on a global scale. An advisor to major media agencies and global brands, she’s a sought-after speaker and author of best sellers “Viral Marketing: Science of Sharing”, “The Attention Economy: How Media Works”, and the latest category guiding book “The Attention Economy: A Category Blueprint. Her work, featured in top publications such as The NY Times, Bloomberg Business, CNBC, Forbes, and Wall Street Journal. As Founder of Amplified Intelligence, she leads in omnichannel attention measurement, offering innovative solutions in attention collection, media planning, and in-flight measurement, guiding the industry through the complexities of media measurement.
Amplified Intelligence is a global leader in human attention measurement, transforming how brands, agencies, and platforms understand and optimize ad performance. With pioneering AI-powered technology, world-leading research, and user-friendly solutions, Amplified empowers advertisers to create campaigns that are not only efficient but also impactful and results-driven. By measuring real human attention in natural environments, Amplified sets a new standard for actionable insights, directly linking attention to tangible business outcomes like ROI and brand growth. Recognized for its innovation, the company won “Most Effective Use of AI Machine Learning” at The Drum Awards for Digital Industries 2022, cementing its position as a trailblazer in the attention economy.
Steve Boehler, founder, and partner at Mercer Island Group has led consulting teams on behalf of clients as diverse as Ulta Beauty, Microsoft, UScellular, Nintendo, Kaiser Permanente, Holland America Line, Stop & Shop, Qualcomm, Brooks Running, and numerous others. He founded MIG after serving as a division president in a Fortune 100 when he was only 32. Earlier in his career, Steve Boehler cut his teeth with a decade in Brand Management at Procter & Gamble, leading brands like Tide, Pringles, and Jif.
Mercer Island Group helps marketers and agencies succeed. Company leadership is as much at home with marketers and their C-Suites as in an agency’s boardroom. With marketers, Mercer Island Group is a top 5 agency search consultancy covering all types of agency relationships (creative, media, web, PR, experiential) and assists marketers with marketing organization structure, workflow and critical skill development (briefing, creative evaluation & feedback, etc.). The company also supports leading and aspiring agencies with positioning, pitch and strategy training and pitch support.