Leading Digital Out of Home (DOOH) media company QMS has today launched its next iteration of landmark Attention research, Turning Attention into Brand Equity: Digital Out of Home’s Superpower, revealing that DOOH requires far less active attention than traditional digital channels to drive both immediate sales and build long-term memory encoding.

Partnering once again with world-leading attention measurement firm Amplified, the latest study expands the scope of the original 2024 study to capture both vehicular and pedestrian traffic across Digital Large Format billboards and City of Sydney Street Furniture.

Analysing over 400 hours of footage across 9 days, 200 plus campaigns, and over 12,000 real-time biometric ad views from 300 participants, the research provides the most comprehensive study of human attention and of how consumers naturally move through and interact with outdoor assets and environments.

The landmark study reveals DOOH’s commercial superpower of driving a powerful dual effect that simultaneously triggers immediate, short-term sales uplift while compounding long-term brand memory.

Where traditional digital channels require a 2.5-second active attention exposure threshold to register an impact, the DOOH advantage triggers positive outcomes by delivering measurable brand equity and sales response at around just 1.0 active second.

This rapid payoff is supported by DOOH’s substantial attention footprint, averaging 24.2 seconds across City of Sydney assets and 13.9 seconds across Large Format roadside billboards. Here, time-in-view demonstrated that it creates the opportunity to engage, with passive attention working for active attention rather than against it.

The research also underscores creative effectiveness as the ultimate performance multiplier, proving that while good creative earns attention, strong, distinctive branding is what ultimately banks the equity. By mapping how attention behaves across pedestrian and driving routes, the study gives advertisers a clear blueprint of how to optimise site mix, flighting, and creative execution for maximum ROI.

Amplified Founder and CEO, Professor Karen Nelson-Field, said the findings are significant and reinforce how DOOH has evolved to be an essential, high-efficiency anchor in modern media plans.

“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. Here, DOOH begins to deliver measurable brand and sales outcomes at around 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.
“The study also reinforces that media and creative cannot be separated. DOOH creates the opportunity for attention, but visible distinctiveness is what banks that attention into brand equity. 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.”

QMS Chief Strategy Officer, Christian Zavecz, said expanding the study was the natural next step to give advertisers a complete, real world understanding of how Digital OOH delivers impact across different physical environments.

“What we’ve uncovered is that DOOH operates on a completely different attention model. 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.”
“QMS is proud to continue leading the global conversation around attention in OOH and its subsequent media accountability. Our inaugural Attention study established that the channel commands powerful attention, but our latest findings provide granular, real-world detail across both driving and pedestrian journeys to prove DOOH’s true superpower and its ability to play a major part in omnichannel campaign solutions.”

OMD Chief Planning Officer, Thad King, welcomed the second phase of research, noting its practical value for agency planners and strategists looking to optimise campaign effectiveness.

“The value of this research isn’t simply proving that attention matters. 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.
“Ultimately, it helps planners make better decisions about format mix, flighting and creative deployment to drive stronger business outcomes for clients.”

Wednesday 12 August, 2026