A New Era of Attention Measurement in Africa
Connect, part of The Up&Up Group, has taken a significant step forward by signing an exclusive partnership with Amplified, a global attention measurement company. This collaboration brings AttentionAI to the African continent, marking a pivotal moment in how brands and agencies approach media planning and creative strategy.
AttentionAI is Amplified's innovative predictive AI product. It transforms a single creative asset into a detailed attention dataset, offering insights into how audiences are likely to engage with that asset across various platforms, formats, and demographics. Drawing on over a decade of academic research from Professor Karen Nelson-Field and more than 50 billion real human attention data points, AttentionAI provides teams with second-by-second attention decay curves, benchmarks, and creative scores. This data can be integrated into existing planning, buying, and creative testing systems through an API, making it a powerful tool for modern marketers.
For Connect, this partnership is the next phase in its long-standing focus on attention. In 2025, Connect and Amplified conducted South Africa’s first biometric attention data capture, measuring how local audiences actually pay attention to ads across screens and formats. This study provided the agency with a calibrated view of the South African market that very few agencies have. Now, AttentionAI extends this work from a one-time study into an always-on capability, allowing for continuous insights and adjustments.
Why This Partnership Stands Out
Most agencies and brands treat attention as a post-campaign metric, reported after the money is spent, alongside reach and frequency, and used to grade work that's already in market. However, Connect uses the data differently. It is structured for AI training and pulled into the workflow upstream, before plans are signed off and budgets are committed. This means attention becomes a signal that shapes channel mix, format selection, creative routing, and flighting decisions at the planning stage. Attention is an input, not an output.
This distinction is crucial commercially. By the time a campaign is live, the expensive decisions have already been made. Putting predictive attention data in front of those decisions is where the real value lies.
Insights from the Creator of Attention Measurement
Professor Karen Nelson-Field, founder of Amplified and the academic widely credited with turning attention measurement into a recognized industry discipline globally, shared her thoughts:
"Connect and The Up&Up Group represent exactly the kind of forward-thinking partner we built AttentionAI API for. By integrating predictive attention data directly into their own systems, they are moving beyond one-off analysis and making human attention a practical, scalable input into everyday creative and media decisions. This partnership shows how attention can become part of the infrastructure of modern media, helping teams test faster, optimize earlier, and make decisions based on how people are actually likely to engage."
Karen’s work, including the original benchmarks now used across the industry, has shaped how global brands and holding groups think about media quality. Her endorsement of Connect’s approach signals that the agency’s upstream model is the direction the global industry is moving in.
What This Means for African Brands and Agencies
While Connect is the only agency on the continent with rights to deploy AttentionAI, the agency aims to ensure that attention data is used widely across the continent, not locked behind a single agency wall. Brands that want to test creative before flighting, plan media against likely attention rather than likely impressions, or build attention into their existing measurement frameworks can work with Connect directly. Other agencies and independent shops that want access to the data for their own clients can also reach out. Connect is open to partnership conversations on both sides.
Scott Reinders, COO at Connect, said:
"We've been building toward this for years. The 2025 biometric study gave us the calibration. AttentionAI gives us the always-on layer. The point isn't to add another dashboard. It's to make sure the decisions that cost the most money, the ones made before a campaign goes live, are the ones with the best data behind them."
Robert Grace, CSO at The Up&Up Group, added:
"With clients asking tougher questions than ever about where growth will come from, our role across the Up&Up Group of companies is to help them build brands that are both stronger and smarter in an increasingly fragmented, algorithm-driven landscape. Success demands absolute clarity on what drives performance, and our continued partnership with Dr. Karen Nelson-Field and Amplified strengthens our ability to uniquely provide clients with the advanced solutions they need to unlock growth."
About Connect
Connect is the data, media, and connections agency within The Up&Up Group. The agency works across major South African and pan-African clients with a focus on attention-led planning, AI-supported decision-making, and integrated brand and performance media.
About Amplified
Amplified is the global attention measurement company founded by Professor Karen Nelson-Field. The company combines academic research with biometric data and predictive AI to help advertisers understand how audiences actually engage with ads.
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