Digital OOH advertising drives measurable brand and sales outcomes at around one active second of attention, significantly less than the 2.5-second threshold required by traditional digital channels, according to research by QMS.
The study, Turning Attention into Brand Equity: Digital Out of Home's Superpower, conducted in partnership with attention measurement firm Amplified, analysed more than 400 hours of footage across nine days, more than 200 campaigns and more than 12,000 real-time biometric ad views from 300 participants, capturing both vehicular and pedestrian traffic across Digital Large Format billboards and City of Sydney street furniture.
It expanded the scope of a 2024 study to provide a broader view of how consumers interact with outdoor assets across different physical environments.
"Last time it was a volume play – cameras mounted on the assets facing down to the consumers. This time it’s about the individual: individual gaze and how that interacts with assets in the real world," said Professor Karen Nelson-Field, founder and CEO at amplified.
"We brought in dual‑facing eye‑tracking glasses so we could understand both inward – pupil changes and direction of the eyeball – and outward – the field of vision. That’s much more suited to natural experiences, following people around in real environments."
The research tracked consumer gaze across walking and driving zones in both Sydney and Melbourne, with the findings pointing to a dual effect most advertisers hadn't accounted for.
"Active attention builds a dual effect. Most people talk about advertising doing one thing or another – short‑term sales or long‑term memory. We found both, moving together in the same direction," Nelson-Field said.
“What stands out in this study is the efficiency of DOOH. In many digital environments, we typically look for around 2.5 seconds of active attention to begin seeing an effect, particularly for memory,” said Nelson-Field.
“Here, DOOH begins to deliver measurable brand and sales outcomes at around ⅔ one active second.
“That doesn’t mean attention is easy to earn, but it does show that in the right environment, even a short active glance can do valuable commercial work.”
“Good creative earns the glance; strong branding ensures the brand gets the credit.
“For advertisers, the implication is clear: the strongest outcomes come when site selection, time-in-view and distinctive creative are planned together.”
DOOH assets averaged 24.2 seconds of attention across City of Sydney street furniture and 13.9 seconds across large format roadside billboards, with the research finding that even passive attention contributed to brand outcomes rather than working against them.
The study also found creative effectiveness determined whether attention translated into brand equity, with distinctive branding the critical factor in converting a glance into a measurable commercial outcome.
Christian Zavecz, chief strategy officer at QMS, said the expanded study gave advertisers a more complete picture of how DOOH delivered impact across different environments.
"What we’ve uncovered is that DOOH operates on a completely different attention model," said Zavecz.
“You don't need 3 to 5 seconds of viewing, instead with DOOH all that is needed is just one active second on a high-impact DOOH screen and brands can deliver both immediate action and create long-term brand equity which is crucial for marketers to build great brands.”
Thad King, chief planning officer at OMD, welcomed the second phase of research.
"The value of this research isn't simply proving that attention matters,” King said.
“It's helping us understand what kind of attention thresholds drive different outcomes across different environments, which is a meaningful shift for planners.
“Understanding how active and passive attention work together gives us a stronger foundation for designing more effective media experiences.
“QMS' continued investment in this research moves attention beyond a standalone metric and into a practical planning tool, providing valuable evidence on how creative, context and channel design work together to build memory, create relevance, influence behaviour and improve campaign effectiveness.”
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