The Eye-Tracking Truth About Ad Attention feat. Mike Follett (CEO, Lumen Research)

In Episode 33 of The Indian AdGeek, host Vishal Mehra sits down with Mike Follett, CEO of Lumen Research, to untangle the science of human attention in advertising. From late-night client debates in Mumbai over how big a logo should be to building cutting-edge infrared and webcam eye-tracking technology, Mike reveals why traditional focus groups give us useless data and why humans everywhere are wired to ignore ads. We dive deep into: The Advertere Fallacy: Why forcing people to look at ads in focus groups invalidates market research. Media Realities: Why linear TV and cinema ads outperform glitzy digital platforms on raw attention, and why cricket remains the greatest ad vehicle ever invented. The Creative Multiplier: How great creative can effectively boost your media budget by 50%—and why relying solely on algorithms is a trap. The AI Slop Problem: What eye-tracking data says about AI-generated creatives and their 10–20% drop in effectiveness. Gaming Attention: Why proxy metrics fail and how programmatic attention layers are changing media planning across global agency stacks. 🎧 Listen to Lucy Jameson’s episode on The Indian AdGeek here. The Indian AdGeek streams on all podcast apps. The Indian AdGeek | Episode 33 Host: Vishal Mehra on X (@vishal1mehra)