Last night’s forum, Pay Attention: the Future of Online Content, was one of our best yet, or so say those who attended. Our founder, Will Rowe, kicked things off with the pertinent revelation that 80% of the Protein Audience view their time to be as valuable to a brand as their purchasing power.

Our panel of industry experts, (individuals united by an first-class understanding of the topics at had), then contributed to an insightful discussion centred on the way in which online publishing is changing. It’s becoming progressively apparent that as the click becomes a redundant means of measuring user engagement, a revaluation of methodology is needed. We aimed to explore the measures that brands could introduce in order to bring this about.

Tom Mehrten’s of Purple PR reinforced this belief, “when brands come to us now it’s more quality over quantity, it’s about how tastemakers are reacting, it’s not about clicks”.

Over saturation continues to blight the realm of online publishing. There is arguably just too much content to sift through, (another factor in reduced engagement), much of it of low quality. How then could brands identify worthy material. Lynette Nylander, deputy editor of i-D, posited that a possible way to combat this advent would be to create more involving content. “Brands want to see content produced in engaging ways, they want savvy ways to integrate their campaigns."

Brands want to see content produced in engaging ways, they want savvy ways to integrate their campaigns - Lynette Nylander, deputy editor of i-D

It was felt in general that quality written content was being undervalued as a means of increasing interest, bringing about a healthier click-through rate and reducing the contemporary impulse to use ad-block. Ben Young, CEO of native content platform Nudge, summed up this point succinctly when he said, “brands aren’t valuing written content as much as they should be.”

With what felt like a prescient statement, Lynette Nylander advised brands that entering the publishing arena could bring about originality and advancement, “the innovative brands are the ones that want to become publishers.”

Thanks to everyone that came down, including our panel of insightful experts.