Five Questions with Pedro Almeida
It’s an exciting time for Pedro Almeida, CEO of the recently rebranded Mediaprobe (formerly MindProber). During the ARF’s Attention 2023, TAC sat down with Almeida for a conversation about the strategic direction for Mediaprobe, new applications for its galvanic skin response (GSR) based solution and his thoughts on where attention is heading.
TAC: You recently rebranded your company to Mediaprobe. What drove your thinking?
Almeida: With the initial brand, we didn't have a focus on long-format content – what we wanted to do was take neuroscience out of the lab. What ended up happening and you know the market dictates is that we got a lot of interest from people on the production side who wanted to make better, more engaging content and then also on the commercial side from a placement perspective - how do I make sure that a brand is exposed in the most engaging moment. Accordingly, we wanted to move away from traditional market research and neuromarketing. This (rebranding) just reflects that now we're a media measurement company and we're tackling this attention or impression quality opportunity.
TAC: What did you learn at Attention 2023?
Almeida: I always like to come to these conferences because you see the amount of really amazing work that is being done. I think that everyone is sort of mindful that every company has its place; we're really not competing because we're measuring different things and our metrics address different problems. It's really nice to understand on the one hand how much traction everyone is getting, on the other hand to have a dialogue.
TAC: There’s been a lot of discussion about the potential for an attention-based currency. Is this something you think will eventually happen?
Almeida: I think it will be faster for some formats than others – especially those where current metrics are problematic. For instance, viewability (for online video) is a standard everyone understands. OK, but viewability has a big problem which is that viewable ads are actually not viewed. So when there is a currency that is really bad, then the market is out there for you to disrupt that if you have a better solution and a better technology. I think eyes on screen companies really took that and understood it, and they're doing amazing work into actually replacing the standard.
TAC: What role do you see Mediaprobe playing with the ARF Attention Validation Project?
Almeida: We started thinking that we would tackle this opportunity in the beginning of 2022 and then engaged very strongly in 2023. One of my objectives was to be a voice at the table: I wanted to say, “Hey guys, this is more complex than just eyes on screen.” We need to systematize what everyone is doing and why - it's more than just predicting outcomes. As I said in my presentation, the fact that you look at something and remember that thing is sort of obvious - what you need to do is predict whether you will look at it or not.
TAC: What’s the most innovative application you’ve found for your technology?
Almeida: One thing I'm really excited about - and it has nothing to do with commercial efficacy – is predicting churn. With our system, 30 seconds before someone switches channels we can see a really high probability of the person switching channels. We’re really excited because it opens a huge range of possibilities for creative and format pretesting. I think we're the first ones in the world to actually do this in real time and that's something that really excites me.