How the new attention standards turn feeling into data

Two months ago, I watched “KPop Demon Hunters” on Netflix. Several friends had recommended the animated film, so I figured I’d put it on and see what the hype was about. I was playing a game on my phone when it started. Within minutes, the phone was down.

What began as background noise became an obsession. I’ve watched it twice since, memorized the soundtrack and spent more nights than I’d care to admit watching TikTok dance covers of “Golden.” Something about the rhythm, melody and tension in each scene held my attention longer than any movie I’ve seen this year. It pulled me away from another screen entirely.

That’s what every marketer hopes to spark — a rhythm people feel, not just see. This idea sits at the heart of the long-awaited IAB and MRC Attention Measurement Guidelines.

Beyond viewability

For decades, advertising success was built on exposure. The IAB and Media Rating Council’s viewability standards, established in 2014, provided marketers with a structure and a common language for assessing whether an ad had the opportunity to be seen. Viewability remains the foundation of accountable measurement. It establishes the baseline of exposure.

The new attention guidelines build on that baseline. After months of collaboration among measurement providers, publishers and agencies, the industry now has a standardized framework across four approaches: 

• Data signals.
• Visual tracking.
• Physiological and neurological observation.
• Panel-based studies.

Unlike viewability, which identifies opportunity, attention measurement adds interpretive value. It helps you understand how people actually experience an ad, not just whether they could have seen it. In that sense, attention builds on viewability rather than replacing it. It should be treated as a diagnostic input to interpret engagement, optimize creative and connect exposure to outcomes more effectively — not as an outcome in itself.

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The MRC accreditation process is now open for organizations offering attention measurement solutions. This development reshapes how agencies, publishers and in-house teams will buy and optimize media, shifting from quantity of impressions to quality of engagement.

Complementing these guidelines, the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM) and IAB have released an Attention Measurement Playbook. It provides practical guidance for marketers navigating this transition toward attention-based strategies. But attention is only the beginning. It is the path to something deeper: emotion.

The art and science of attention

Decades of psychology and neuroscience research show that emotion enhances attention, strengthens memory and increases purchase intent. In short, emotion drives memory, and memory drives outcomes.

Attention measurement doesn’t capture emotion directly. It captures the behavioral and cognitive signatures of emotional engagement.

• Data signals like hovering, scrolling, voluntary sound-on and social sharing. 
• Visual tracking like gaze duration, facial expressions, human presence and eye movement patterns. 
• Physiological and neurological observations like pupil dilation, heart rate changes and brain wave patterns. 
• Panel and survey data that capture self-reported emotional response and purchase intent. 

These are the observable traces of feeling — signals that reveal when emotion is at work. It’s the heartbeat that turns an impression into an experience. Attention measurement captures that pulse and helps marketers turn it into measurable action.

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Each methodology offers unique strengths.  

• Data signals analyze billions of impressions to identify attention patterns.  
• Eye-tracking shows exactly where people look and for how long.  
• Physiological and neurological tools map biological and subconscious responses.  
• Panel research layers in attitudinal and brand-impact insights.

The real power emerges when these approaches work together. Use data signals to measure on-device human behavior. Layer visual tracking to validate visibility and response. Incorporate physiological and neurological methods to understand emotional resonance. Verify through panel data to assess message and brand impact. Think of it as layering instruments in a song — the more harmonized they are, the richer the insight.

The CIMM and IAB Playbook provides frameworks for exactly this kind of integration, helping marketers determine which measurement approaches align with their specific business objectives and media strategies. But measurement means little without creative intent. Before writing a brief, answer this: “What do we want people to feel?”

Joy and surprise increase social sharing. Nostalgia strengthens brand affinity. Different emotions move through different formats. Video excels at narrative arcs. Audio creates intimacy and imagination. Out-of-home delivers impact through scale. Display and social work best for surprise and shareability.

What comes next

After months of public comment, the guidelines are finalized. With accreditation open and the CIMM and IAB Playbook offering practical guidance, marketers now have both the standards and the roadmap to measure what truly matters — the moments that move people to care, click, share and remember.

These resources don’t tell you what creative to make or which emotional chord to strike, but they offer a way to know when you’ve succeeded. They turn intuition into evidence and feeling into data. Over time, these signals will train AI models to predict which creative moments will resonate before a campaign even launches.

Yes, I’ll probably watch “KPop Demon Hunters” again (and again). I’ll be singing along to “Soda Pop” and “Golden” for the next few weeks. And somewhere between the melodies and the emotions, one truth remains clear: The future of marketing isn’t about what people see. It’s about what they feel. And now, we finally have a way to measure it.