Havas & Viant Bring the Attention Marketplace to Life for Brands That Demand More

The advertising industry has long relied on one-dimensional signals such as impressions or frequency to gauge media performance. As marketers face growing pressure to demonstrate accountability, many are looking beyond exposure alone to understand the quality of engagement their investments generate. Attention has emerged as a critical indicator of media effectiveness, helping brands identify the environments and experiences most likely to influence consumer behavior and drive stronger outcomes. 

That shift in thinking is what the Havas and Viant Attention Marketplace was built to address. It represents one of the most substantive advances in how premium media is planned, bought, and measured today. 

The Attention Marketplace extends the Meaningful Marketplace, Havas’ premium media offering designed around the principle that media investments should not only drive performance, but also create consumer experiences that deliver lasting impact. 

The Havas Meaningful Marketplace consists of a curated network of publishers evaluated across a range of quality and effectiveness metrics, including viewability, social resonance, ad clutter, audience growth, attention, and brand safety. Through direct relationships with publishers and integrations with SSP and DSP partners, Havas can represent distinct demand within publisher ad servers, reducing supply path inefficiencies and eliminating re-sold inventory. 

Beyond quality and performance, the marketplace emphasizes transparency and sustainability. Verified by Jounce as 100% MFA-free, the Meaningful Marketplace generates 53% fewer carbon emissions than typical open-exchange buying, according to Scope3. The Attention Marketplace adds attention intelligence at the point of activation, enabling brands to identify and invest in media environments most likely to generate stronger engagement and business impact. 

“The Attention Marketplace is designed to help brands make smarter media investment decisions,” said Jackie Lyons, Chief Planning Officer of Havas Media Network North America. “By connecting attention data to activation and optimization, we can identify the environments that drive stronger engagement and demonstrate measurable value for our clients.” 

Turning Attention Into Action

Traditional media measurement has long relied on signals such as impressions, reach, viewability, and completion rates. These metrics indicate whether an ad had the opportunity to be seen. They do not reveal whether it captured attention, was processed by the consumer, or contributed to meaningful outcomes. 

The IAB describes attention measurement as using exposure, engagement, and interaction signals to better understand advertising impact. Attention is not a replacement for reach or viewability. Rather, it provides an additional layer of insight that helps explain why some impressions perform more effectively than others and why the same budget can deliver vastly different results depending on where and how it is invested. 

Most marketers recognize the value of attention. The challenge has been operationalizing it at scale. While attention has become an increasingly important measurement framework, relatively few solutions have successfully integrated attention signals directly into media buying in a way that influences decision-making throughout the campaign lifecycle. 

The Attention Marketplace was built to close that gap. It combines Havas’ curated publisher ecosystem with Viant’s attention-scoring infrastructure, transforming attention from a reporting metric into an actionable buying signal. In doing so, it helps brands create desire through more engaging consumer experiences, convert demand through smarter media investments, and drive transformation through data-led decision-making. 

Within Viant, omnichannel marketplace inventory is scored by attention decile, creating a dynamic view of high-, average-, and low-attention opportunities across strategies. This enables pre-bid targeting against high-attention inventory and ongoing optimization throughout a campaign, helping marketers direct investment toward environments most likely to generate stronger advertising impact. 

“Every audience engages with media differently, which is why a one-size-fits-all approach to attention is not enough,” said Holly Dunn, Managing Partner, Head of Investment & Activation of Havas Media Network North America. “The Attention Marketplace enables brands to invest in media environments that are most likely to capture attention and drive measurable business results.” 

How Attention Is Integrated Across The Full Investment Cycle

What separates the Havas and Viant approach from attention as a research exercise is the way it is embedded throughout the media investment process. 

In planning, Havas uses its Attention Planner to evaluate high-quality environments before investment decisions are made. During activation, attention informs pre-bid segment targeting and curated inventory selection. Throughout optimization, spend is continuously shifted toward placements that deliver stronger attention efficiency. In measurement, attention is analyzed alongside reach, frequency, cost, brand lift, conversion rates, and sales impact to create a more complete view of performance. 

That integration matters because attention without activation is simply a score. The Havas and Viant partnership is designed to make attention a signal that informs decisions at every stage, from planning through performance analysis. 

The partnership also draws on Havas research developed with Lumen and Brand Metrics, including thousands of brand lift studies examining the relationship between attention, memory, and business outcomes. That research informs how attention is applied across media investments, not just how it is measured. 

“What makes this partnership distinct is the combination of Viant’s AI-driven programmatic activation infrastructure, TVision’s second-by-second eyes on screen TV attention measurement capabilities, and Havas’ strategic investment discipline,” said Tim Vanderhook, Co-founder and CEO of Viant . “Viant brings comprehensive household-level identity, premium CTV scale, data activation, and AI bidding and optimization capabilities. TVision delivers person-level attention signals in real time, giving advertisers visibility into engagement ahead of the ad break so budgets can be directed toward the moments most likely to land, enabling advertisers to understand not just whether an ad was served, but whether it was actually viewed and engaged with. Havas brings audience strategy, marketplace curation, and the ability to connect those attention signals to business outcomes. Together, these capabilities create a more effective approach to media investment, bringing attention directly into planning, activation, and optimization.” 

To learn more about the Attention Marketplace and how attention-based planning, buying, and optimization can help your brand drive stronger engagement, improve media efficiency, and create more meaningful consumer connections connect with Amanda Dyke, Managing Partner of Marketing & Communications, North America, amanda.dyke@havasmedia.com . 

This blog was originally posted by Havas Media Network: https://havasmedianetwork.com/news/havas-viant-bring-the-attention-marketplace-to-life-for-brands-that-demand-more/