As with any media audience, each of the attention-driven consumer segments includes a select group of “super users,” whose outsize levels of consumption tend to make them disproportionately valuable to media companies. “Super consumption,” however, doesn’t always translate to “super spending,” and attention can help to explain the gap. Consumption doesn’t equal spend The most prolific consumers of media (by time spent) look different from the most prolific spenders on media (by dollars spent). Our research suggests that the top 10 percent of spenders (by dollars spent) make up almost 50 percent of consumer spend in media. The concentration of spend among heavy consumers of media (by time spent) is less stark: the top 10 percent of consumers of media only make up about 20 percent of spend. These super users aren’t necessarily “super spenders.” We define a super user as being in the top decile of time spent on media, and only one-third of those users are super spenders (that is, those in the top decile of dollars spent on media). 8 These figures are even more stark within individual mediums: of the top 10 percent of premium-video consumers (by hours consumed), only one-fifth are in the top 10 percent of premium-video spenders. Many high-volume consumers or self-professed streaming fanatics may have content running passively, reducing their potential value via direct spending, ad exposure, or the likelihood of spreading the word. 9 Attention helps bridge the gap—focus correlates to spend Across consumers, a 10 percent increase in average focus across mediums is associated with a 17 percent increase in spend across mediums and a 20 percent increase in likelihood to frequently purchase from advertisements. Consumers in the top quartile of focus spend twice as much as those in the bottom quartile. Put another way, the more attentive media consumers are, the more likely they are to spend. 8 T his relationship holds for the top 20, 30, and 40 percent of consumers. 9 T he level of focus paid is positively correlated to the frequency of ad purchases, suggesting lower advertising efficacy during less focused consumption. ‘Super attention’ versus ‘super users’: Driving media spend 16 The ‘attention equation’: Winning the right battles for consumer attention