What is attention? The American Psychological Association defines it as “a state in which cognitive resources are focused on certain aspects of the environment rather than on others.” To that, we’d add one more important factor: attention is finite and, therefore, valuable. Nobel laureate psychologist and economist Herbert Simon observed  in 1971 that “a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.” Tech theorist Michael Goldhaber expanded on this in the 1980s, stating, “obtaining attention is obtaining a kind of wealth that puts you in a preferred position to get anything this new economy...

We often hear comments about today’s “polarized” media environment — how politically charged things are and how hard it is to navigate this media landscape without being pulled into contentious conversations that we’d probably rather avoid.  But when we speak of “polarization,” what do we mean? How do we define it? How do we measure it? And most importantly, what does it mean for advertisers? In today’s media environment, “polarization” is often regarded as a synonym for “political”: if content can be categorized as either “left” or “right,” or “liberal” or “conservative” or tagged with any other...

Synexus’ “Attention Unblocked” research paper examines how consumers respond to advertising in different online contexts — offering invaluable new insights for advertisers and underscoring the need for tools that accurately evaluate online content to maximize ROI. The study’s conclusion is clear: Polarizing content is a bad deal for brands, period. Appearing next to polarizing content undermines advertising in critical ways, generating less attention, increasing negative brand perceptions and lowering recall and favorability. Synexus’ research, conducted in partnership with Lumen, draws on eye-tracking...