Just because an advertisement is ‘viewable’ on a social media platform, have you really ‘viewed’ it? Did it fully catch your attention? Advertising agency Dentsu has released a study on the subject in the MENA region, focusing specifically on Saudi Arabia.
Called ‘Unlocking the Currency of Attention KSA’, the study aimed to analyse users’ habits across five social media platforms, including YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat.
It aims to bridge the gap between traditional measurement metrics and actual human behaviour, offering vital insights into how attention shapes advertising effectiveness.
Saadeddine Nahas, Head of Product & Partnerships at Dentsu, said: “Many current systems still treat all impressions equally, regardless of how much attention they truly capture. Moreover, the rise of device-centric metrics that are easy to measure but merely proxies for attention further complicates meaningful exposure.
“Our Attention Economy programme at Dentsu aims to change that by creating a value system that truly reflects opportunities to engage consumers.
“Recognising the unique characteristics of the MENA region, we have undertaken the region’s first large-scale, cross-platform attention study in Arabic. Focused on Saudi Arabia, our research was tailored to the market’s specific dynamics, designed to uncover regional differences from global benchmarks and deliver a comprehensive view of authentic engagement.”
A major difference between the sample in Saudi Arabia (750 people), was there are nuanced differences in the MENA region compared to the rest of the world when it comes to attention metrics. Some platforms showed lower viewability and less percentage viewed, but higher view time than the global average.
Social media visibility trends
The study, which simulated real-world use of social and video platforms using tools including eye-tracking software and brand-recall exercises, found that social media content in the region had ‘lower visibility’, but ‘viewed times’ across most platforms was higher. The average time clocked in the study was six seconds, compared to a lower global benchmark of 4.36 seconds.
Another interesting finding was that platforms that needed to be swiped had more view time than platforms that needed to be scrolled.
While an ad may be technically viewable – it appears on the screen – it does not necessarily mean it has been actively viewed. The research indicates that the number of viewable impressions often exceeds the number of actual viewed impressions, though there are cases where the opposite is true.
This discrepancy is particularly pronounced across different media platforms. Thus, understanding both metrics is essential to gauge the true impact of advertising.
The duration an ad is viewable on screen strongly influences its viewing time. Unskippable ads were viewed for the longest periods due to their extended on-screen presence, but the correlation between viewable time and actual ad viewing varies significantly between platforms.
Dentsu’s study highlighted a platform that had an average viewable time of 15.1 seconds. However, respondents viewed it for less than 33 per cent of that time (5.3 seconds), suggesting that they may have disengaged from the screen while the ad was playing.
It also confirmed that audience attention is higher before the ‘skip’ option is available, suggesting greater attention during the initial ad exposure. The study calls for attention levels to have preference over viewability metrics for higher brand recall.
While some platforms showed high effectiveness with brief viewing time, others showed a bigger increase in recall when viewed for two seconds or more.
The study concluded that ‘attention’ demonstrated 1.4 times the explanatory power of viewability in predicting brand recall, making it a much more important metric to measure when planning.
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