In the hammock, the dream purchases won.
From June to August, ads for the things people dream about held the eye far longer than ads for the things they buy every week. Same panel, same screens — only the season changed.
What we saw
We split the ads our desktop panel saw into two groups by what they sell. Dream purchases: travel, cars, pets — the things people plan for, save for and look forward to. Everyday purchases: food, fashion, sport — the things that get bought every week whether it is summer or not.
Then we compared the summer months, June to August, with the rest of the year. Attention time for the dream group rose by about a tenth over the summer. Attention time for the everyday group fell by about the same. Put together, an ad for a dream purchase held the eye 23% longer than an ad for an everyday purchase during the summer.
Nothing else moved. Same people, same screens, same ad formats — the only thing that changed was the season and what people were in the mood to look at.
Why it matters
- 01Timing is a creative decision, not only a media one. A travel or car campaign gets more of each impression in July than in February. A food or fashion campaign gets less. The media plan can say the same thing; the eyes say it louder.
- 02Viewability did not change. Attention did. The same impression, served in the same place, was worth more or less depending on the month. Only a measure of the eye picks that up.
- 03Everyday brands are not out of luck in summer. They compete for a smaller share of the eye, so the creative has to earn the look faster. That is a brief, not a verdict.