Hong Kong (July 6, 2023) – South China Morning Post (SCMP) has announced significant advancements to its highly acclaimed suitability tool, SIGNAL 2.0, by introducing a comprehensive suite of attention metrics. These cutting-edge metrics offer advertisers and brands enhanced optimisation capabilities, catering to the evolving challenges of capturing and retaining audience attention in today’s diverse media landscape.
Attention metrics have gained substantial attention from marketers worldwide over the last 8-10 months to date. As content consumption continues to proliferate across various platforms, screens, and environments, capturing and retaining attention has become increasingly challenging.
Recognising this industry trend, IAB Australia published a report in late 2022, cautioning against an overemphasis on ad attention metrics in isolation. However, the report also revealed that over 80% of ad agencies expressed their intention to measure ad attention in campaigns throughout 2023.
SCMP believes that attention metrics represent an evolution in audience engagement and play a crucial role in determining business outcomes. Consequently, the SCMP team has diligently integrated attention metrics into SIGNAL, transforming it into a comprehensive platform for understanding attention on a holistic level.
The AI-powered SIGNAL now incorporates a range of metrics, including viewability, time-in-view, ad size, ad position, page type, time of day, and creative interaction.
This integration of key metrics within SIGNAL signifies that “Attention” is now an optimizable strategy applicable to all campaigns across the SCMP portfolio. A scoring system will further qualify these metrics, enabling actionable insights derived from the data set. SCMP plans to release a compelling case study showcasing the benefits of attention metrics during Q4.
“Attention metrics hold the key to maximising ad performance and illuminating the impact of the media environment on capturing attention. Yet, it is through the synergistic collaboration of creative designers, media owners, and optimization teams that bring about optimal results,” Timmy Bankole, Director of Advertising Business Operations comments. “SCMP remains committed to investing in advertising technology tools to ensure the best outcomes for our advertisers while providing effective solutions independent of changes in the identity and data privacy landscape.”
Since its launch in 2020, Signal has gained global recognition, earning accolades such as Campaign Asia-Pacific’s Tech Most Valuable Product Award (2021) and securing second place at the INMA Global Awards for the ‘Best Use Of Data to Drive Advertising’.
– END –
Appendix:
- Personalisation
Data collected by SIGNAL can help brands optimise their activation by making format, content, sentiment recommendations before a campaign goes live by looking at Ad log data from the brand’s past campaigns as well as aggregated cohort data.
- Ad Fraud
Ad fraud is the practice of fraudulently representing online advertising impressions, clicks, conversion or data events to generate revenue. Focusing on malicious bots activities, SIGNAL 2.0 crawls all of SCMPs properties to identify and block any form of harmful bot activity, including impressions, invalid traffic (IVT), clicks and more, utilising machine learning techniques that looks for anomalies in traffic patterns. The addition of this feature ensures our clients’ Ads reach real people and drive real engagement.
- Viewability
Built with the IAB viewability guideline for video and display, SIGNAL 2.0 measures all Ad units across all platforms, ensuring you can improve your Ad quality.
- Measurement
This tool allows brands to determine whether their ads are achieving the objectives by supporting the ability to tie their campaigns to relevant metrics. Brand recognition, brand awareness & brand consideration. Signal V2 will allow SCMP to provide a baseline understanding of consumer preferences, awareness, and intention to purchase.
ABOUT THE SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
The South China Morning Post is a leading global news company that has reported on China and Asia for more than a century. Founded in 1903, SCMP is headquartered in Hong Kong, where it is the city’s newspaper of record, with a growing correspondent staff across Asia and the United States. SCMP’s vision is to “Elevate Thought” and our mission is to “Lead the global conversation on Hong Kong, mainland China and Asia”. It is the recipient of hundreds of awards for its journalistic excellence, from such prestigious organisations as the World Association of News Publishers and the Online News Association. SCMP also publishes a portfolio of premium lifestyle and fashion titles in Hong Kong including Cosmopolitan, ELLE, Esquire and Harper’s BAZAAR. In 2020, SCMP became the first news organisation in Asia to join the Trust Project, a consortium of top news companies developing global transparency standards for credible journalism.
ABOUT THE SCMP ADVERTISING+
For 120 years, the South China Morning Post has been entrusted by both readers and partners in Hong Kong and Asia to tell their stories to over 35 million readers each month.
SCMP Advertising+ connects partners to affluent Asian influencers and business decision-makers through culturally relevant content and events that drive connection and consideration; and its first-party data platform and brand safety tools that deliver impact through insights and context.
SCMP Advertising+ is for partners who want to shape the next chapter of Hong Kong and Asia’s story.
For further information, please contact:
advertising@scmp.com