the eye-watering cost of dull media

the eye-watering cost of dull media with Peter Field and Dr. Karen Nelson-Field 

Dull advertising costs companies millions of dollars. This is true of dull creative, and is even more pronounced in dull media.

In this captivating session from thinktv’s Media, Marketing & Effectiveness event, effectiveness guru Peter Field and attention expert Dr. Karen Nelson-Field share the latest findings from their groundbreaking Extraordinary Cost of Dull research, which puts a dollar value (almost $200 billion!) on invisible impressions and dull media.

The full presentation is well worth a watch, but here are a few highlights:

• An obsession with short-term performance and low CPM’s has pushed spend to low-attention platforms, resulting in an excessive number of hard-sell, ultra-short ads that don’t build brands or pricing power.
• Evidence from System1, IPA, and Lumen indicates dull ads and low-attention media under-deliver, demanding significant extra spend, while attention-weighted media deliver ~60% more attention for the same budget, and stronger brand and market-share outcomes.
• Attention science indicates that there is a 2.5-second threshold for mental availability and memory formation. There are vast disparities in attentive seconds across platforms (TV vs. YouTube vs. social), demonstrating that impressions are far from equal (prompting Karen to rename CPM to “Cost per Meaningless Thousand”).
• Most digital impressions underperform attention-wise: 85% fail to reach the 2.5 second threshold. Social platforms deliver far less attentive seconds than YouTube, while TV remains by far the strongest.
• Creative can’t outrun dull media: Media defines how much attention your creative can achieve. Peter and Karen share that media drives ~70% of variation in outcomes, while creative contributes ~30%. Over and over again, the data shows that media doesn’t just deliver the message — it defines whether the message gets seen at all.
• For an average advertiser in extremely dull environments, advertisers are losing an average of $0.43 on every $1 spent in dull media environments, underscoring that attention — not impressions — should be the primary driver in media planning.

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speakers

PETER FIELD
marketing consultant + effectiveness expert

Peter spent 15 years as a strategic planner in advertising and has been a marketing consultant for the last 25 years. Effectiveness case study analysis underpins much of his work, which includes a number of well-known texts in partnership with Les Binet such as The Long & The Short of it, Effectiveness in Context, and The 5 Principles of Growth in B2B Marketing. In 2024, he helped kickstart the ‘cost of dull’ project to alert marketers to the downsides of dull creative and media choices. Peter has a global reputation as an effectiveness expert and speaks and consults on this topic regularly around the world.

 

DR. KAREN NELSON-FIELD
founder, Amplified

Dr. Karen Nelson-Field is a leading media science researcher who has revolutionised global media measurement. As an advisor to major media agencies and global brands, she is a sought-after speaker and author of bestsellers Viral Marketing: The Science of Sharing, The Attention Economy: How Media Works, and the groundbreaking The Attention Economy: A Category Blueprint.

Karen’s work has been featured in top publications, including The New York Times, Bloomberg Business, CNBC, Forbes, and The Wall Street Journal. As the Founder of Amplified, Karen pioneers omnichannel attention measurement, providing cutting-edge solutions in attention collection, media planning, and in-flight measurement — helping the industry navigate the complexities of modern media.