Congratulations McKinsey: You've Discovered Earned Attention

Consultants finally catch up to Trending Communicators

This is where we live now. Image generated by Midjourney.

This morning, my inbox welcomed me with the usual onslaught of newsletters, LinkedIn versions of those newsletters, updates from the dozen or so news outlets that FOMO’d me into signing up over the past two decades, and no less than six messages from fitness gurus informing me I’d better get the latest supplement, without which I would surely wither and decline into a low-energy, overweight, unfocused, achy, and depressed blob.

I started swiping and tapping. Thumb to the left, tap the garbage pail. Repeat. I usually continue until my unread emails are visible without needing to scroll, or until something diverts me from the task.

Like today, when this little subject-line teaser from the terrific (though often deleted) TLDR Marketing newsletter was powerful enough to stop my thumb mid-descent:

The Attention Equation 👀

Many or most of you, dear readers, have read or heard my musings on the state of media relations and the need for a new, audience-first approach. I wrote that communicators—and their employers—should stop chasing media-hit-highs, and instead focus on connecting with their audiences. I argued that we should bid farewell to “earned media” and say hello to “earned attention.”

So I just had to check out this Attention Equation item. The TLDR Newsletter sent me to a new report from none other than McKinsey, the Finest Collection of Minds the Universe has Ever Known, who, it turns out, have gone ahead and done my work for me in their latest report, The ‘Attention Equation’: Winning the Right Battles for Consumer Attention. Thank you, McKinsey, for coming around.

Allow me to share with you all the highlights of the report and how McKinsey has validated my thinking (and we all know how much I crave validation).

McKinsey, meet Earned Attention. Earned Attention, McKinsey.

A few months ago, I took a swing at the sacred cow of Media Relations, arguing that our profession's obsession with traditional media placements was not just outdated—it was actively harmful to our strategic objectives. The response was... illuminating. Some of you cheered, others threw virtual tomatoes, and many asked the perfectly reasonable question: “OK Dan, but where's the data?”

Now I can say, just ask McKinsey. And frankly, it's remarkable how closely their findings align with what we've been experiencing in the trenches of the communications profession.

To refresh your memory, here's what I argued just a few months ago:

“Earned Attention reflects the current landscape: Media Relations is problematic in part because it’s focused on an increasingly undefinable, fractured, and dying category. Shifting to a broader attention-based approach brings multiple forms and formats of earned content into account.”

And on measurement:

“Attention, however, is about the audience's response and behavior. If we focus on attention, we would measure engagement (clicks, shares, comments, etc.), dwell time (how long someone lingers on the article, watches a video, listens to a podcast, and so on), downloads, and other behavioral metrics.”

McKinsey just spent considerable resources proving exactly these points.

Cover image of McKinsey’s “The Attention Equation” (link to download above)

Masters of Strategy Discover What We Already Knew

McKinsey surveyed 7,000 consumers globally and discovered something that will shock absolutely no one in our field: not all attention is created equal. Their “attention equation” reveals that the quality of attention—driven by focus and intent—matters far more than the quantity of time spent consuming media.

Sound familiar? It should. This is exactly what I've been arguing about Earned Attention versus traditional Media Relations metrics.

While McKinsey focused on media monetization, their core insight applies directly to our communications challenges. They found that traditional commercial factors—platform sophistication, consumer value, industry structure—explain only about two-thirds of the variance in attention monetization. The other third? The quality of consumers’ attention, or what they call the “attention quotient.”

This is the missing piece that has eluded Media Relations for decades.

Focus and Intent: The Real Metrics That Matter

McKinsey's research identifies two critical components of valuable attention:

Level of Focus: How actively engaged people are with content. Their findings are fascinating:

• In-person experiences elicit the highest levels of focus

• Books engage audiences at levels comparable to live experiences (81% vs. 71-88%)

• Console and PC gaming is the only digital medium approaching live-event focus levels

• Even within the same medium, focus varies dramatically between platforms

Job to Be Done: Why people consume content, ranging from “to enjoy something I love” to “for background ambience.”

This framework demolishes the foundation of traditional Media Relations metrics. Why care about “potential reach” when we now understand that focused attention correlates directly with audience behavior? McKinsey found that a 10% increase in average focus translates to a 17% increase in consumer spending.

The Fractured Landscape Gets Data

I think I say “fractured landscape” or “fractured audiences” so often that it’s becoming a catchphrase (note to self: stop, find some new words). But I say it because it’s true, and McKinsey provides the numbers to back this up. They document an explosion in content volume—50 times more amateur uploaders than professionals on Spotify, 25,000 times more content produced on YouTube than traditional TV networks—while total consumption time has barely grown.

The result? What they call “the distracted state of consumer attention.” Americans now spend an average of 13 hours a day engaging with media, but much of it is fragmented, multitasking, and low-quality attention.

This fragmentation is exactly why our traditional Media Relations approach has become so ineffective. We’re fighting for scraps of distracted attention in an overcrowded marketplace while missing opportunities for focused, intentional engagement.

As I wrote in October: “Sometimes (I’d argue most of the time), pursuing a traditional Media Relations approach simply doesn’t align with business strategy... With an audience-centric, attention-driven approach, we would choose a variety of high-relevance, high-resonance channels, secure more earned opportunities with less time and money, and make changes on the fly to adjust to changing business needs.”

The Earned Attention Advantage

Here’s where McKinsey’s research validates the Earned Attention approach I've been advocating:

1. Audience-Centric Measurement Works: Their attention equation demonstrates that behavioral metrics—engagement, dwell time, actual audience response—predict success far better than vanity metrics like potential reach or, heaven forbid, AVE. This is precisely what Earned Attention measures.

2. Quality Beats Quantity: McKinsey found that “super users” (high consumption) aren't necessarily “super spenders” (high value). Only one-third of the top 10% of media consumers are in the top 10% of media spenders. But attention quality bridges that gap; focused consumers are significantly more likely to spend.

3. Platform-Agnostic Strategy is Essential: The report reveals huge variations in monetization across media formats, from $32.54 per hour for sporting events to $0.05 for podcasts. But here’s the key: the most successful media companies aren’t wedded to single formats. They optimize for attention quality across multiple channels.

This supports the Earned Attention approach of seeing “the earned media universe as an ever-growing concatenation of audio, video, social, traditional, and TBD channels” —a phrase I wrote months ago that McKinsey would, if they knew I existed, love. Maybe I should add “Futurist” back into my LinkedIn profile.

Three Consumer Segments That Should Reshape Your Strategy

McKinsey identified seven consumer segments, but three stand out as particularly valuable for communications professionals:

Content Lovers (13% of consumers): The entertainment omnivores who spend 2.4x more money and consume 1.7x more content than average. They’re curious, passionate, and love to discover new things. These are your thought leadership audiences.

Interactivity Enthusiasts (16% of consumers): They prefer interactive content over passive consumption, love video games and sports, and despite finding the media landscape confusing, they’re eager consumers. These are your webinar and interactive content audiences.

Community Trendsetters (10% of consumers): Extroverted tastemakers who drive online culture and fandom. They enjoy advertisements more than any other segment and tend to over-index their spending on their interests. These are your social media amplifiers.

Of the three, maybe you’ve got a shot at reaching the Content Lovers through traditional media. But reaching them doesn’t mean they’re paying attention to you. Sure, they might enjoy or hate-read the Times or WSJ every day, but when was the last time a Tier-1 media pitch appealed to their curiosity, passion, and love of discovery?

What This Means for Your Communications Strategy

McKinsey's research provides a roadmap for the Earned Attention approach:

1. Stop Chasing Vanity Metrics: If a 10% increase in focus correlates with 17% more spending, why are we still measuring potential impressions? Start tracking engagement depth, dwell time, and behavioral responses.

2. Invest in High-Attention Channels: The data reveals significant disparities in attention quality across various formats. Books, console gaming, and live events command premium attention. How can you create content that delivers similar focus levels?

3. Understand Your Audience's “Job to Be Done”: Are your stakeholders consuming content “for education and information” (like podcasts and newspapers) or “to enjoy something they love” (like books and live events)? Match your content strategy to their intent.

4. Build Platform-Agnostic Approaches: The most successful media players optimize across multiple channels rather than betting everything on one format. Your Earned Attention strategy should similarly diversify across platforms based on where your audience pays focused attention.

The AI Acceleration Factor

Here’s something McKinsey doesn’t emphasize but we must: AI is accelerating this transition. While they mention AI’s role in content creation, they underestimate how quickly AI will automate the traditional Media Relations process.

As I noted in my original piece, tools like PRophet, Muck Rack, and Agility PR are already handling press release creation, pitch writing, and media monitoring. This automation will only improve, making traditional Media Relations even more commoditized and less valuable.

But AI also creates opportunities for Earned Attention strategies. We can now:

• Analyze attention patterns across platforms in real-time

• Optimize content for focus and engagement using behavioral data

• Personalize content for different audience segments at scale

• Track true ROI through behavioral metrics rather than vanity metrics

The Path Forward: Frameworks for the Attention Economy

McKinsey’s research validates what many of us have been experiencing: the traditional Media Relations playbook is broken. But their data also provides a blueprint for something better.

Earned Attention isn’t just a theoretical framework—it’s a data-driven approach that aligns with how audiences actually behave in our fractured media landscape. It focuses on quality over quantity, behavior over impressions, and strategic alignment over arbitrary placements.

But how do you actually implement this shift? Two frameworks can help guide your transition:

• The PESO Model©: Gini Dietrich’s PESO Model©—integrating Paid, Earned, Shared, and Owned media—provides the perfect structure for implementing Earned Attention strategies. As I noted in my previous piece, “Earned Attention subsumes Media Relations anyway,” and PESO gives you the framework to orchestrate attention across all channels rather than fixating on traditional earned media placements.

• The REVERB Framework (Coming Soon): I’ve been developing a systematic approach to content transformation that I call REVERB—a methodology for reimagining, enhancing, varying, ensuring consistency, refining, and boosting content across multiple channels to maximize attention value. This framework helps communicators extract maximum attention from every piece of content they create, turning single assets into comprehensive attention-generating campaigns. I’ll be diving deep into REVERB in upcoming posts, but the core principle aligns perfectly with McKinsey’s findings: optimize for attention quality across multiple touchpoints rather than hoping for a single “hit.”

The question isn't whether this transition will happen. McKinsey's research makes clear that attention quality drives real business outcomes, and smart organizations will optimize for it. The question is whether you’ll lead this transformation or get left behind.

As I said before: it’s time to stop the madness and embrace the data. The consultants have finally caught up to what we’ve been living through. Now let’s use their research to build something better.

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What do you think? Does McKinsey's research change how you view the Media Relations vs. Earned Attention debate? I'm curious to hear from both the converts and the skeptics. Drop a comment below or hit me up on LinkedIn. And if you haven't already, subscribe to The Trending Communicator podcast for more insights on navigating this chaotic, AI-powered communications landscape.

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Notes

This post is roughly 60% human-created and thoroughly AI-assisted. Here's how I did it:

• I used Google NotebookLM to extract and synthesize my previous work on Earned Attention

• I worked with my preset Claude Project (called The Dan Nestle Content Engine, contact me if you want to learn about it) to analyze the McKinsey report, synthesize the findings with my previous work on Earned Attention, and draft the newsletter

• Grammarly chimed in for style and grammar assistance

• The hero image was generated using Midjourney

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Want to dive deeper into the ECHO, REVERB, and PLAY frameworks for AI-enhanced content strategy? Reach out to Inquisitive Communications for workshops and strategic guidance.