The Attention Economy and How Media Works Simple Truths for Marketers

This book offers a considered voice on the advertising chaos that colours our rapidly changing media environment in a world of fake news, fast facts and seriously depleted attention stamina.

In a world of fake news, fast facts and seriously depleted attention stamina, this book offers a considered voice on the advertising chaos that colours our rapidly changing media environment. Rather than simply herald disruption, Karen Nelson-Field starts an intelligent conversation on what it will take for businesses to win in an attention economy, the advertising myths we need to leave behind and the scientific evidence we can use to navigate a complex advertising and media ecosystem. This book makes sense of viewability standards, coverage and clutter; it talks about the real quality behind a qCPM and takes a deep dive into the relationship between attention and sales. It explains the stark reality of human attention processing in advertising. Readers will learn how to maximise a viewer’s divided attention by leveraging specific media attributes and using attention-grabbing creative triggers. Nelson-Field asks you to pay attention to a disrupted advertising future without panic, but rather with a keen eye on the things that brand owners can learn to control.

Karen Nelson-Field is the Founder and Executive Director of Amplified Intelligence and Professor of Media Innovation at The University of Adelaide, Australia. Karen is a globally acclaimed researcher in media science, is a regular speaker on the major circuits, and has secured research funding from some of the world’s largest advertisers. Her first book, Viral Marketing: The Science of Sharing(2013), set the record straight on hunting for ‘viral success’. Her work has been noted in The New York Times, Bloomberg Business, CNBC, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, Contagious and The Drum, and she is a regular media writer for the Australian Financial Review. Karen’s commercial work combines tech and innovative methodological design to look closely at attention metrics in a disrupting digital economy.



This book offers a considered voice on the advertising chaos that colours our rapidly changing media environment in a world of fake news, fast facts and seriously depleted attention stamina. Rather than simply herald disruption, Karen Nelson-Field starts an intelligent conversation on what it will take for businesses to win in an attention economy, the advertising myths we need to leave behind and the scientific evidence we can use to navigate a complex advertising and media ecosystem. This book makes sense of viewability standards, coverage and clutter; it talks about the real quality behind a qCPM and takes a deep dive into the relationship between attention and sales. It explains the stark reality of human attention processing in advertising. Readers will learn how to maximise a viewer’s divided attention by leveraging specific media attributes and using attention-grabbing creative triggers. Nelson-Field asks you to pay attention to a disrupted advertising future without panic, butrather with a keen eye on the things that brand owners can learn to control.