Changing a global industry is no mean feat and it requires an incredible amount of grit. At Amplified, we believe it takes an open minded, innovative and driven person to not only recognise the size of the opportunity but also take ownership of driving their business forward through innovation and desire to find a better way.

Amplified wants to connect with the best, brightest and bravest of attention adopters. Those who have tackled the challenge head on and single-handedly brought attention measurement to the forefront of their companies strategies.

As part of our Attention Amplifiers series we will be showcasing the unique perspective and hunger for innovation from across the industry, featuring stories from some truly inspiring people who have driven their organisation’s forward through the adoption of attention.

In this edition we’ll be hearing from Snapchat’s, Aarti Bhaskaran, who will be detailing her unique experiences and outcomes from working with attention measurement at one of the world’s most innovative platforms.

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Tell us a bit about yourself, and the role you have at your organisation?

I head the Global Research and Insights practice at Snapchat. Basically what this means is my team is responsible for all external facing thought leadership research around audiences, why do people do what they do on the platforms and of course, all things ad related studying our various ad formats whether it's a skippable non-skippable video formats, creators, augmented reality lenses for Snapchat globally. 

We work very closely with a lot of cross functional partners at Snapchat, whether it's marketing, comms, our Global agency team or PMM. My team and I work with them to try to position Snap in the market and highlight the unique benefits the platform has to offer to advertisers 

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What challenge were you faced with that brought attention to the fore?

I don’t know if you would call it a challenge but a few years ago, we were looking at where the industry is heading and at that time, there was so much conversation around attention. I think it's because advertisers are ready to move away or evolve from viewability and a lot of discussion centered on what would be next. I think our challenge is really that we were starting from a blank slate with no history on the platform, studying a metric that's not been measured before and figuring out how we go about it.

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How did you discover that attention could help solve that problem?

We have been quite active in various industry bodies like IAB and people were talking about redefining viewability and if not viewability, then what are the metrics brands should be looking at.  My team works very closely with all Global holding companies and agencies and there was a lot of interest among these agencies to explore attention as a metric and a concept. And that's how we really came to attention as a potential solution. 

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With attention being relatively new, was there resistance, or hesitancy, in adoption that you had to overcome? What were some of the challenges you faced along the way?

I think more than resistance it was really curiosity that was present among a lot of our stakeholders. The other big challenge for us is education. It takes time to get people to understand what is the concept you're studying, why you're studying, what were the outcomes and what it means for them. Once you finish the foundational research on attention, the next big challenge is how do I measure it, what are the standards, how are you thinking about different formats, how do you scale it and so on. In fact I don't think there was hesitancy but curiosity and this curiosity was actually followed by a lot of enthusiasm once people wrapped their head around this concept. 

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What did your first project focussing on attention entail and what were you looking to achieve?

At Snapchat, we always start with laying or building a very strong foundation for any new concept. Our first project was to measure Snapchat’s core video ads products across several markets to understand how it performed compared to other social in-feed video and how this varies by markets, categories, audience groups like various generations. The study yielded a lot of insights on how attention works on Snapchat. 

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Why did you choose to partner with Amplified?

Amplified came very strongly recommended by the holding companies. Our first research that we did with Amplified was in partnership with OMG and that was really the start of the relationship. Then we continued to work with Amplified because they were willing to invest in new technology to be able to measure new ad formats for us, especially Augmented reality. I think the fact that you're able to take our Camera SDK kit and built a bespoke way to measure AR is unique and that's what makes them a great partner. I also appreciate Dr Karen Nelson-Field feels depth of knowledge when it comes to the field of attention and her interpretation of results 

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What insights did attention provide you with that other measurements or metrics weren’t able to?

All of the attention research we did proved some of the hypotheses we had on how connecting with friends and family on Snapchat makes Snapchatters pay more attention to content. It has also helped explain the power of some of our ad formats - full-screen video ads and AR lenses - that we knew but did not have the right proofpoints to talk to advertisers about. It also enriched brand measurement on the platform. 

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What are some of the outcomes that attention helped produce for your business?

Our work is part of marketing’s message in-market on Why Snapchat. We now offer attention as a measure solution and have completed measuring more than 50 campaigns across 20+ Advertisers within the first 8 months of our offering it. I think it shows how cutting edge we are in terms of measurement. 

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What advice would you give to others looking to kickstart their attention journey?

Invest in a strong foundation based on research. You need to understand how attention works for you - whether you are a brand or a platform. And once you have that, validate findings with actual campaign measurement so that you can develop a framework for measurement and are able to have meaningful conversations with others about attention. Speak to others who are also along a similar journey - some of my best insights came from talking to others in the industry.