The Attention Equation: Competing for What Really Matters
Oct 22, 2025
For years, leaders have measured success in the attention economy through the wrong, or misleading lens. We counted clicks, views, and hours watched as if time alone reflected value. But time has never been a reliable proxy for attention. It tells us how long people stay, not how deeply they care or how much they spend.
A recent McKinsey study, The Attention Equation (2025), reframes this issue with a more rigorous model of how attention translates into economic value. The research covers more than forty media formats, ranging from live sports to podcasts, and introduces a framework that explains why one hour of attention can be worth thirty dollars in one context and five cents in another.
The core insight is simple but transformative. The value of attention (Vₐ) depends on two measurable factors: Attention Quality (AQ) and Commercial Quality (CQ). Expressed as an equation:
Vₐ = AQ × CQ
This is a formula that captures the real drivers of monetization across industries competing for the same scarce resource: human focus.
The Two Sides of the Equation
1. Attention Quality (AQ): the depth of focus
AQ measures how intentional, concentrated, and meaningful a consumer’s engagement is. It depends on two behavioral variables:
Focus level — the degree of cognitive attention during the experience.
Job to be done — the purpose behind the attention. People watch, listen, or scroll for different reasons: to learn, to relax, to connect, or simply to fill silence.
The study found that formats demanding high focus, such as live sports or cinema, produce much higher economic returns than multitask-friendly media like radio or podcasts. A 10% rise in average focus level is associated with a 17% increase in spending per hour of content consumed.
2. Commercial Quality (CQ): the ability to monetize attention
CQ reflects how effectively a platform, brand, or ecosystem turns attention into revenue. It includes:
Consumer purchasing power and willingness to pay.
Ad receptivity and targeting efficiency.
Platform maturity in data, commerce, and subscription models.
Regulatory and cultural conditions that shape pricing and ad formats.
Across formats, CQ explains roughly two-thirds of the variation in revenue per hour, while AQ explains the rest. Together, they predict why some experiences generate exponential value and others struggle to monetize large audiences.
What the Data Shows
The disparities are striking. According to McKinsey’s modeling, one hour of live sports attention generates about $33, amusement parks $24, live concerts $17, while digital music yields only $0.12, radio $0.11, and podcasts $0.05.
In other words, the same 60 minutes can vary in value by a factor of nearly 300. What matters is not duration, but what happens inside that hour—the intensity of engagement and the system’s ability to commercialize it.
What CEOs Should Take Away
The “attention equation” challenges every company that competes for audience, customer, or stakeholder focus. It demands a shift from time optimization to quality optimization.
Rethink metrics: Replace reach and duration as headline KPIs with indicators of focus and intent. Engagement depth, dwell purpose, and interruption rates reveal much more about value.
Align content to purpose: Identify the “job” your content serves—education, connection, entertainment, relaxation—and design around that purpose to lift AQ.
Invest in monetization capability: The best attention still needs a strong CQ. Develop data infrastructure, ad systems, and commerce pathways that convert high-quality attention into measurable return.
Segment by attention, not demographics: Treat audiences according to how they pay attention, not just who they are. McKinsey’s high-AQ segments—content lovers, interactivity enthusiasts, community trendsetters—drive outsized value.
The leaders who master this equation will stop chasing the longest watch times and start building the richest minutes. Attention has always been the currency of communication; this research finally provides its exchange rate.
