In this episode of The Six Sells Podcast I spoke to Nick Pugh about media effectiveness and attention. Nick had some insightful answers about media effectiveness, and how it can be planned, bought and measured. Here’s a few of the insights you will find in this episode:
Does effectiveness mean incrementality at a price?
Media effectiveness isn’t activity - it’s incrementality against a KPI, and what you paid to get it. Start by stating the trade you want to make: profit now, growth later, or a mix. Then judge the plan against that choice.
Reach still matters, but effective reach matters more - placements that create time in view and attention. On brand, consideration is a strong lead indicator. When it moves, base sales usually follow.
Measurement that changes decisions
Ebiquity use MMM/econometrics to attribute incrementality across channels and inside channels. When a sharper answer is needed, they run geo tests designed to be nationally representative, then scale the winner.
Short term isn’t the whole story. They link spend → brand metrics → base sales to get total-term payback.
Creative is a multiplier. On like-for-like media, stronger creative can deliver roughly 2.2x the return of weaker work. If you ignore creative, you’ll misread channels.
The best measurement output isn’t a deck - it’s budget moves with owners and dates.
Attention as a planning signal
Ebiquity matched their Profitability 2 ROI database (c. 140+ brands, 14 categories, ~£1.7–£1.8bn spend) with Lumen Research’s attention benchmarks. The relationship was “very, very strong” and Nick said that “attention is a leading indicator of ROI profit”
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