Dr Karen Nelson-Field at Awin Global ThinkTank 2025: Marketers need to stop counting eyeballs and start earning them
Dr Karen Nelson-Field closed the first day of Awin Global ThinkTank (apparently after enjoying four Portuguese custard tarts – being from Australia, she doesn’t get to Portugal often!). She walked on stage armed with a fresh book manuscript, and a righteous mission to save marketing and media measurement from itself.
Attention, please (no, really, please.)
Karen’s central thesis was crystal clear: time in view is not attention. And yet, most digital ad metrics are based on the former while pretending to measure the latter. “You think you’re buying eyeballs,” she quipped, “but what you’re really getting is a magic trick – and not a very good one.”
Cue the magician metaphor that anchored the whole session: marketers and magicians have the same job – to control attention and shape perception – but marketers are playing on a stage that’s noisy, unpredictable and under constant attack from toddlers, TikTok, and WhatsApp notifications.
Your stage is a scroll
Her point? Magicians work on stages. You work on screens. And on screens, people scroll. Fast. So fast, in fact, that Karen’s research showed most digital ads get less than 1.5 seconds of actual human attention – if you’re lucky. Some formats fare even worse. Research shows that we scroll a huge 1,121% faster on the web than on TikTok – and you know we all scroll fast on TikTok…
She likened our current metrics obsession – time in view, impressions, duration – as an industrial-scale sleight of hand. We’re measuring “ads served” and pretending they mean “ads seen.” But in truth, 75% of non-fraudulent impressions get zero actual human engagement. That’s not brand exposure. That’s digital tumbleweed.
The branding magician’s toolkit
So, how do we escape the illusion? Karen handed marketers a wand – or at least a cheat sheet:
- Brand early and often: If your logo doesn’t show up until second five, chances are your audience already swiped to a dog doing backflips.
- Use distinctive assets: Think meerkats, golden arches, the M&M crew. Your brand should be recognisable in 1.5 seconds or less.
- Leverage emotion: A well-placed laugh, tear, or “aww” moment helps ads stick in the memory (but only if they remember who it was from).
- Don’t rely on creative alone: Even award-winning ads can underperform if the platform they run on doesn’t give them enough airtime to breathe.
- And her most brutal insight? Great creative still drowns in a bad media buy. If your ad performs beautifully on YouTube but tanks on TikTok, it’s not your team – it’s the platform. Attention is platform-dependent, not just content-driven.
Performance marketing, you’re not off the hook
And for those smug performance marketers hiding in the back? Karen had receipts. She warned that ignoring attention means leaving money on the table – that real attention doesn’t just boost brand lift, it drives cheaper clicks, stronger ROI, and better long-term performance. It’s not just a branding problem. It’s your problem too.
Final thoughts: pay attention to attention
Dr Karen Nelson-Field’s talk was less of a keynote and more of a public service announcement. A nerdy, no-nonsense takedown of everything broken in ad measurement – served with a smile and a sugar crash.
Her final message? “Magicians master where the audience looks. That’s your job now.” In an age of scrolling, swiping, and skipping, attention isn’t a given – it’s earned. And if you’re not earning it, you’re paying for the illusion of impact while your competitors cash in on reality.
More from Awin Global ThinkTank 2025:
Scott Galloway: Vulgar, vital, and very much on point
Lily Ray at Awin Global ThinkTank: SEO is dead, long live SEO
