Podcast Summary: The Marketing Architects

Episode: Debunking "Attention" with Marc Guldimann

Date: December 2, 2025

Episode Overview

In this episode, the Marketing Architects team sits down with Marc Guldimann, co-founder and CEO of Adelaide, to dissect the hot topic of "attention" in advertising. The episode challenges the trend of measuring and buying based on attention and explores whether attention metrics actually drive meaningful business results. The conversation blends marketing science, industry anecdotes, and critique of legacy practices, offering listeners actionable insights on media quality, measurement, and ad-buying strategy.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Marc's Background & Entrepreneurial Journey

• Marc shares his unconventional path to marketing, from hacking wireless networks as a student to founding companies centered around better advertising metrics.
• He describes a consistent focus on measurement and data-driven understanding of media quality, learning early on about the industry's "perverted incentives" due to poor metrics.
  • Notable quote:
    “Advertising, a lot of the weird things we do in this industry, and a lot of the perverted incentives that people face, can be traced back to bad measurement or a lack of shared understanding of quality.” (04:52, Marc)

2. The Debate: Is Buying Attention a Waste?

• The conversation opens by referencing Byron Sharp’s critique of attention metrics as a wasteful investment. Marc agrees in part but sees nuance missed in Sharp's argument.

  • Quote:
    “You don't want the creative that captures the most attention...the most attentive creative is not always the right creative.” (09:00, Marc)

• Pitfalls of Maximizing Attention:

  • Focusing on maximizing attentiveness can lead to unintuitive, even counterproductive results—such as optimizing ads for sensationalism or targeting inattentive or overexposed audiences.
  • Example: Overly engaging creative (e.g., “spinning hummus container”) drew more attention but did less for brand recall compared to straightforward branding.

• Goodhart’s Law is invoked: optimizing on an indicator (attention) bends behavior in unintended ways, undermining its predictive power.

  • Quote:
    “When you start optimizing to it, things start to go really weird.” (11:00, Marc)

3. Flaws in Legacy and Bad Attention Metrics

• Marc criticizes superficial or legacy attention metrics (e.g., those from “verification companies”), calling out their lack of rigor and actual outcome-predictive power.
  • Attention metrics that simply repackage viewability aren’t enough; poorly constructed metrics risk souring brands on attention-driven approaches altogether.
  • Quote:
    “The biggest risk to the widespread adoption of attention metrics is bad attention metrics.” (13:53, Marc)

4. What Makes an Attention Metric Valuable?

• The most valuable use is in rating media placements—not audiences or creatives—so brands can transact based on probability of quality attention.
• Adelaide’s approach models attention like credit scoring:
  • Gather data on what signals drive attention in different channels (using eye-tracking, etc.).
  • Aggregate these at the placement level.
  • Model and reinforce using real business outcome data to ensure predictive power.
  • Quote:
    “We like to think of ourselves as like a credit rating agency for media quality.” (19:23, Marc)

5. Media Buying, Quality, and the Role of Transparency

• The discussion moves to how markets buy media, especially in television and digital, where cost, audience, and quality vary wildly between placements.
• Marc proposes a shift:
  • From: Obsessing over cost transparency, post-campaign measurement, and attribution.
  • To: Trading on clear ex-ante measures of media placement quality.
  • He provocatively frames calls for margin transparency as “closer to Marxism than capitalism.”
    • Quote:
      “There should be transparency of quality and not transparency of margins. Transparent margins is closer to Marxism than capitalism, it’s just like Marxism with a little bit of money…” (22:29, Marc)
  • Brands naturally default to “fairness” doctrines when quality is unclear, but fixing quality measurement would shift focus and incentives for everyone.

6. Channel Insights: Best and Worst in Attention

• Best current bargains: YouTube, podcasts, and pockets of premium CTV (Connected TV) are highly attentive and underpriced.
• Worst offenders: Low-quality mass CTV and some outcome-based platforms, which often “game attribution” rather than drive actual impact.
  • Quote:
    “The law of outcomes… any platform who gets to be large enough will figure out that it’s easier to predict outcomes than it is to create them.” (29:10, Marc)

7. Spicy Opinions & Industry Meta-Issues

• Marc’s spiciest take: The chaos and weirdness of ad industry practices directly result from lemon market dynamics and adverse selection, where lack of visible quality leads to irrational behaviors.

  • Quote:
    “All of the weird stuff we do in this industry can be traced back to the fact that we’re ostensibly in a lemon market for media…” (26:58, Marc)

• Predicts that platforms will always optimize for taking credit, not creating results, and that it's a mistake for agencies or platforms to sell outcomes directly.

8. Personal “Attention Spend” Reflection

(31:11) Fun closing question: “If your attention was money, what are you overspending on?”

• Marc: Doom-scrolling Twitter/X gets too much of his attention.
• Angela: Bingeing on reality TV (“The Voice”).
• Rob: College planning for his daughter—over-analyzing when she’ll choose based on campus “feel.”
• Wayne: Reality TV, especially “Dancing with the Stars.”

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On optimizing attention:
  “The most attentive creative is not always the right creative...You don’t want the creative that captures the most attention.” (09:00, Marc)

• On leading indicators and Goodhart’s Law:
  “Imagine…you said, ‘now the new KPI for the sales team is who can send the most emails.’ ...The quality of emails would go down and all of a sudden the number of emails sent would no longer be a leading indicator.” (11:20, Marc)

• On media buying irrationality:
  “The market is totally irrational. There are lots of valuable placements that are underpriced...I do think there’s a lot of opportunity in CTV and on the web and in all mediums to use attention data to more efficiently buy attentive reach.” (00:00/21:00, Marc)

• On attention metrics and value:
  “If we can use attention metrics to rate the quality of placements, we can fundamentally change the way people think about media buying.” (16:00, Marc)

• On transparency:
  “Transparent margins is closer to Marxism than capitalism. …A lot of people say, ‘we should get 5-10% margin.’ If you went to a gas station and they could only sell you ‘buckets of gas,’ you’d behave exactly like an advertiser.” (22:25, Marc)

• On industry incentives and outcomes:
  “Any platform who gets large enough will figure out it’s easier to predict outcomes than to create them…they’ll serve you an ad when you’re about to buy something and then claim credit for it.” (29:10, Marc)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:00] – Opening, Marc’s take on market irrationality & undervalued attentive placements
• [04:52] – Marc’s entrepreneurial journey & obsession with measurement
• [06:06–11:12] – Byron Sharp critique & dangers of optimizing for maximum attention, Goodhart’s Law
• [12:42–15:12] – Problems with current attention metrics; why bad metrics threaten adoption
• [15:19–19:27] – How Adelaide builds and applies actionable, outcome-driven attention metrics
• [20:37–22:29] – Media quality, buying dynamics in TV/CTV, the role of irrational pricing
• [22:29–26:58] – Spicy take: Transparency, agency business models, and the “lemon market” analogy
• [28:02–30:53] – Which channels get the best/worst attention metrics?
• [31:11–33:38] – Personal reflections: what are panelists “overspending” their attention on?

Summary Flow & Tone

The tone is candid, analytical, and at times playful—mixing intellectual rigor with approachable, real-world examples and plenty of spicy (and even controversial) takes. The panel stays focused on how the industry can evolve past simple exposure metrics to embrace data-led, outcome-predictive approaches—challenging listeners to rethink their own assumptions about attention, transparency, and media buying.

Resources & Follow-Up

• Marc Guldimann / Adelaide:
  • Website: adelaidemetrics.com
  • LinkedIn/Twitter: @Goldie (GULD I), though Marc rarely posts.

For marketers, this episode offers both an actionable blueprint for using attention data and a memorable deconstruction of industry orthodoxies—plus plenty of spicy opinion to spark your next debate.