• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, May 16, 2024

It was intended to be a teaser for future research validating ad attention measurement by medium, but the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) this week teased an anecdotal finding from its latest phase indicating TV outperforms the attention of social media by a margin of more than two-to-one.

"We'll just touch on media platforms, really as a prelude to the third phase," ARF Chief Research Officer Donato said during a presentation of findings from "Phase 2" of the initiative on Tuesday, which focused primarily on the differences and congruences of various attention measurement methodologies, mostly how they relate to advertising creativity.

Then, at the end of the presentation, Donato showed the slide above, which reveals markedly higher advertising attention scores for TV vs. two social media platforms.

Donato did not disclose who the companies were that produced or participated in the research, or what the scores actually represent other than their relative magnitude, letting the numbers speak for themselves.

"This is not a conclusion," he said, noting: "One or two of the companies provided information on the media platforms in which they were studying the same ads.

"This particular company found TV gaining more attention than two social networks.

"I'm not saying it's a finding. It's a prelude to entice you and the same companies to participate in the third phase."