In a market that can optimize anything except patience, this panel asked a better question: what kind of attention actually moves people? Richard Hartigan, Head of Omnichannel Retail, Pinterest, shared new research on the quality of attention and the “amplifiers” that lift outcomes. Matt Hanlon, Director of Omnichannel & Media, Boots, showed how Boots Media Group turns deep consumer trust into meaningful engagement, not just noise. And Lauren Dick, Managing Director, Media & Commerce, Mail Metro Media, pulled back the curtain on Mail Metro Media’s cross-platform content engine—how recognisable, repeatable, relatable ideas build habit and convert. Three perspectives, one through-line: attention is earned when context, creativity, and commerce show up together.
The Bottom Line
Attention isn’t a vanity metric; it’s a design choice. Pinterest shows how to amplify it, Boots proves trust earns it, and Mail Metro Media turns it into habit and commerce. Build context, design for positivity, mix formats, and connect content to checkout. That’s attention that performs—and lasts.
The Takeaways
Attention Has a Quality—Engineer for It
Hartigan broke attention into passive (reinforcing, longer-term) and active (hands-on, focused) and showed why the best outcomes come when they work in tandem. Pinterest’s study identified four attention amplifiers marketers can control: context, audience strategy, positive creative, and format mix, with static and video together outperforming either alone. Apply them and results compound.
“By using the combination of the two together, it drove not only better attention, but better sales uplift,” he said.
Trust to Relevance to Attention at Boots UK
Hanlon’s point was straightforward: Boots doesn’t chase reach for reach’s sake. It earns attention by knowing its core shoppers (health, wellness, and beauty) better than anyone, and showing up consistently. That means clear storytelling, going deeper than short-term ROI, a strong visual identity brands can plug into, creator-led authenticity, and a culture of “fail fast, fail forward.” The result is retail media that feels like service to shoppers, not an interruption to their journey.
“It’s really not about the short-term ROI always… It’s about building longer-term engagement in connection with customers,” Hanlon shared.
The four R’s: Recognisable, Repeatable, Relatable, Rewarding
Dick outlined a newsroom-style operation built for speed across platforms (zooming in on TikTok). The “secret sauce”: content that’s recognisable, repeatable, and relatable—with a fourth R: rewarding (you see it in dwell time and engagement). The team blends editorial instincts with AI-informed trendspotting and stitches attention to commerce through testing, recommendations, and transaction data. That’s a true full-funnel system: fame at the top, conversion at the bottom, and trust connecting the two.
“We build that trust, which then means we have the authority to say, ‘We have tested this and we really recommend it,” she said.
Quote to Remember
“When we tied this all together… using the amplifiers of audience, context, creative, [and] targeting, we saw almost a three times improvement in the amount of attention people would pay… With that knowledge… why would you not use them in all campaigns?” — Richard Hartigan
