In an era in which consumers rarely give one thing their full attention, attracting and retaining attention is top of the marketing agenda, including at the Gerety Awards event this month.

Joe Brooks, Co-Founder of the Gerety Awards, introduced Gerety Talks: Where intention meets attention, by sharing how many Gold Winners of the Gerety Awards this year went on to achieve Grand Prix status at Cannes. The Gerety Awards are unique because they judge all advertising through a female lens. As Brooks explained the cross over between Cannes winners and Gerety winners, underline: “Good work is good work, and good work resonates with a female audience.”

Hosted at Forsman & Bodenfors’ London HQ, the panel was chaired by Creativebrief Editorial Director, Nicola Kemp. She sat down with Helen James, CEO at Forsman & Bodenfors London, Debbie Ellison, Global Chief Digital Officer at VML Commerce, Jon Biggs, Executive Creative Director, EMEA at Monks and Genevieve Tompkins, Chief Executive Officer at Goodstuff.

Together, they discussed how advertising can capture and retain our ever-shortening attention and new ways in which brands can better connect with consumers.

Kemp framed the discussion by highlighting the prevalence of screens in our lives; the second screen, connected screens, and out-of-home screens. Yet we barely retain any of this digital information. She shared that as many as 85% of digital ads are not meeting the attention-memory threshold of 2.5 seconds. So how can marketers really connect brands with audiences? Can creativity be the solution?

The new attention economy

Opening the discussion on the challenges of standing out in a world where attention is fleeting, James shared that the issue comes in part from a lack of confidence in creativity. Whilst our attention span is short, repetitive marketing isn’t helping. James advocated for taking creative risks and stepping out of the sameness that has become so commonplace across the industry. She spoke of the challenge for advertisers to convince brands that trying something different is worth it, but emphasisied how risks can help work to stand out. And one way of taking a risk is by embracing emotive storytelling, like much of the winning work from this year’s Gerety Awards. As Kemp explained: “Sometimes the biggest risk is not taking any risk at all.”

Adding to the conversation, Ellison shared the importance of keeping consumer attention once it had been captured. For Ellison, innovation and creativity deliver exponential wins. The way to unlock retention is by understanding media ecosystems. It is here, in these online platforms, that consumers can experience a brand showing up authentically. By understanding the landscape, a brand can know how and where to deliver value, which in turn leads to surprise and delight moments. While there are great examples of this out there, the formula isn’t being unlocked in droves just yet.

The myth of the second screen

Speaking of showing up online, Kemp opened the discussion up to the impact of second screening on advertising. Biggs offered a contrary perspective, that the phone is no longer the second screen, but the first. He also said that the idea of second screening suggests the second follows the first, but in reality consumers don’t always work like that, because consumers don’t care about the work as much as we do.

For Biggs the concept of duality is less about trying to interrupt people and more about a brand having an authentic way of being part of a conversation that consumers are already engaged in, e.g. on their phones and social media. Biggs gave the example of Saatchi & Saatchi’s Christmas campaign for Waitrose campaign. The whodunnit saga was discovered by some consumers on social media, who then went to look up the full ad from there. For him, it was a great execution of first and second screen content, occurring in a way that felt natural for viewers.

Building on the Christmas spotlight, Tompkins shared that Christmas is a cultural moment for advertising, because lots of consumers actually want to see the content, whereas they don’t care for advertising most of the time. With the opportunities offered by this cultural moment, she looked at changes in the market, noting a shift in the conversation away from what attention means and towards how to get it. Instead of needing to prove the value of digital with impressions and proof of effectiveness, Tompkins echoed Ellison’s earlier sentiment; championing the integration of brands into digital in a native way.

The new wave of creative storytelling

Changing course, Kemp introduced a second topic; a discussion of the tools, techniques and creative ways that brands are forging ahead with meaningful creative solutions to better connect with consumers.

One way of connecting with consumers is using digital experiences for creative storytelling. Ellison kicked the conversation off by talking about how storytelling now is about kinetic brand experience. According to research from VML, 63% of how a person feels about a brand is how they experience it. To deliver a consistent and connected brand experience, brands need to keep a red thread running through their brand experiences.

Creative storytelling was heavily featured in this year’s winning work. James noted three main themes that came through within this topic: 1 - depth and authenticity, 2 - championing diverse voices, and 3 - a celebration of craft and technology. For the first theme, she spoke about the works’ ability to tell emotional stories and connect with audiences, stating that emotional connection with audiences increases success as people are more willing to invest in that. The second point referred to the stories we heard from underrepresented groups in the winning work this year. Speaking to the Unstereotype Alliance’s report on investing in inclusivity, she emphasised how important and rewarding telling these stories can be. On the third theme, she touched on using technology to drive creativity and attention even more.

Of course, you can’t talk about technology and craft without mentioning the AI-generated Christmas advert from Coca Cola this year. Ellison stated that she loved the bravery of using AI, and that the ad got people talking - whether you liked the ad or not, it was getting attention. For Ellison, regardless of the creative output, the ad showed people outside of our industry just what AI is capable of. She added, “That is our job. To try new tech and see what it can do, and see its limitations”. Kemp made the point that it is good to feel uncomfortable. If we don’t, maybe we aren’t taking the risks that we should be taking.

Continuing the conversation, Tompkins touched on brands using multiplatform storytelling. Now, with second screens, people have more control over the content they consume. For her, influencer marketing is a great way of creating content that feels authentic, but brands aren’t quite there yet and there is still a huge opportunity for them to get it right.

Biggs added that authenticity can come from speed; the faster work gets to market, the more relevant it is and the more likely that a brand can be part of what people are doing. He warned that often, marketing leaders talk themselves out of great work opportunities by over analyzing what would happen. Biggs advocated for just trying things out and seeing how they go and seeing what sticks. “The news cycle is always going, so if work goes wrong what’s the worst that can happen?” he asked.

Ensuring that process does not come before people was also top of the discussion agenda. Commenting that slowness comes from the processes before the outcome, James suggested three ways of changing the status quo. The first being prioritising deep thinking over multitasking. The second recommendation was embracing slower decision making. While the third was embracing curiosity, listening to those outside of our bubble. A powerful reminder that it is easy to adopt the language of curiosity, but harder still to remember that true curiosity is always a work in progress.