Executive Channel Network (ECN), which operates digital screens in office building lobbies across the UK, France, Germany and Belgium, published a study by Lumen Research on October 14, 2026, claiming its D6 office screens earn 3.4 times the attention of comparable D6 screens in roadside, retail and transport environments. The study, titled "The Business Case for Office Attention," measured 603 full-time office workers in three countries and is aimed at programmatic buyers, who can reach every ECN screen through five supply platforms.

In Short

A company that runs advertising screens in office lobbies had a research firm measure how much people actually look at them, compared with the same size of screen in streets, shops and stations. The research firm says the office screens get about three and a half times more attention, and people remember the brands shown on them 44% more often. Advertisers buying screen time through automated platforms now have a number to weigh office screens against other out-of-home inventory, though the full study is only available on request.

The findings

Four findings are listed in the release. According to ECN, its D6 office screens "earned 3.4x more attention than comparable D6 screens across roadside, retail and transport environments, rising to 8.3x versus transport and 5.9x versus shopping malls." The D6 format is defined in the release as a 2 square metre screen.

Against much larger formats, the gap narrows. ECN's D6 screens "earned 1.25x the attention of large-format digital roadside on average, including 48 and 96-sheet formats, despite being a fraction of the size," according to ECN. A 48-sheet and a 96-sheet are among the largest standard roadside billboard sizes in the UK.

The third finding concerns memory rather than looking. ECN "generated 44% more brand recall than standard D6 DOOH," according to the release. The fourth is stated without a figure: "Office DOOH screens outperform digital channels at converting attentive seconds into brand recall as cumulative attention rises across the working week."

The method is described in two sentences. "The study measured 603 full-time office workers across the UK, France and Germany," according to ECN. "Results were benchmarked against Lumen's normative database of 100+ studies spanning out-of-home and digital media, and tested at 95% confidence."

What the benchmarks say about each other

The release reports three ratios against D6 screens, and dividing them shows how the benchmarks compare with one another. If ECN earns 3.4x the D6 average but 8.3x the D6 transport figure, then the transport screens in Lumen's comparison attract roughly 41 percent of the attention of the average D6 screen. Shopping mall screens, at 5.9x, sit at about 58 percent of the average. Those are PPC Land calculations from the published ratios, not figures stated by ECN or Lumen.

Two things follow. First, the headline 3.4x figure is an average across a mix of environments in which transport screens pull it down sharply. If that average is a simple mix of the three environments, roadside D6 screens would have to sit above it to balance transport and malls, though the release gives no separate roadside ratio or weighting. Second, the same arithmetic puts large-format digital roadside at about 2.7 times the attention of the average D6 screen, which is consistent with the general expectation that larger screens earn more attention. The office screens beat that figure by 25 percent while being, as the release puts it, "a fraction of the size."

What the study does not disclose

The release leaves several questions open. The 603 participants were office workers in the UK, France and Germany; Belgium, the fourth country where ECN sells screens, was not part of the sample. The benchmark screens were not measured in the same study. They come from Lumen's normative database, which spans more than 100 studies across out-of-home and digital media, according to ECN. That means the comparison sets ECN's results against historical data gathered at other times, in other places and possibly with other audiences.

The release does not say how attention was measured, what unit the score uses, or when the fieldwork took place. Lumen's methods typically rely on eye tracking, as PPC Land noted when Lumen extended its partnership with Teads to CTV HomeScreen ads in May, but the ECN release does not describe the technique used here. Nor does it give absolute recall levels behind the 44 percent figure, or say whether the 95 percent confidence threshold applies to every finding or only some.

The release calls the study independent. It does not say who commissioned or paid for it. ECN describes itself as "Europe's leading office media network," a company claim the release does not support with data. The full research is available on request, according to ECN.

Why offices, according to ECN and Lumen

Both companies offer an explanation for the gap. Mike Follett, CEO of Lumen Research, tied the result to dwell time and repetition. "ECN's screens sit where office workers walk and wait every working day, so they earn more attention than large-format DOOH and better recall than your standard 6-sheet," he said. "As our cumulative attention research shows, brand outcomes come from building attention over time, and few environments build it as naturally as the daily commute through the office lobby."

That reference connects to Lumen's broader research programme. On October 13, PPC Land covered Lumen's cumulative attention study with Amazon Ads and Cint, which put the attention needed to move purchase intent at a median of 47 seconds, summed across impressions, based on 270 cross-media campaigns. An audience that walks past the same screen several days a week is the kind of setting where that accumulation could plausibly happen.

The release frames the physical setting in similar terms. "Office foyers combine fewer competing ads with natural dwell around lifts, while the same professional audiences return several days a week, creating repeated opportunities to be seen," according to ECN. A subheading in the release summarises the argument: "The screen is the same. The office environment is the difference."

Charles Parry-Okeden, identified in the release as Global CEO of ECN, pitched the result directly at the programmatic market. "Programmatic buyers have spent years looking for a reliable quality signal in DOOH. Lumen has now given them one: the same screen earns more attention in the office than in roadside, retail or transport environments," he said. "Every ECN screen is available in the platforms buyers already use, so that attention advantage is one deal away." PPC Land's October 12 coverage of the World Out of Home Organization's spend study quoted a Charles Parry-Okeden as WOO's VP and Global Lead for Audience Measurement and Data. The ECN release does not mention a WOO role.

Inventory and buying routes

The release's subtitle, "Attention you can bid on," signals who it is written for. According to ECN, every ECN screen in the UK, France, Germany and Belgium is available programmatically through Vistar Media, VIOOH, Broadsign Reach, Place Exchange and Perion. ECN puts its delivery at "more than 28 million impressions a week across 900+ screens in premium office buildings."

Taken at face value, those numbers imply an average of about 31,000 weekly impressions per screen, or roughly 4,400 a day. The release does not say how impressions are counted.

ECN screens run full-motion video, which the release presents as an opening for video and CTV buyers. Happydemics brand lift studies are available on request for programmatic campaigns, according to ECN.

The release makes a pricing argument without naming a price. "Programmatic buyers trade in impressions, and not every impression is equal," according to ECN. "An impression on an ECN office screen carries 3.4x the attention of a comparable D6 impression in roadside, retail or transport environments, so the same budget buys more attention, not just more delivery." Whether that holds depends on what ECN impressions cost relative to roadside, retail and transport D6 inventory, a figure the release does not provide.

The programmatic DOOH market ECN is selling into

Programmatic digital out-of-home is still a small slice of the channel. WOO's first global supply-side study put programmatic DOOH spend at $1.339 billion in 2025, about 7.0 percent of all digital out-of-home spend. Private Marketplace deals took 75.7 percent of that money, with open auction at 17.4 percent and programmatic guaranteed at 6.9 percent.

That structure matters for a study like this one. Private marketplace deals are negotiated between buyer and seller before any bidding takes place, and a quality claim such as an attention multiple is the kind of evidence sellers bring to that negotiation. Parry-Okeden's line that the advantage is "one deal away" points at exactly that mechanism.

Buyers expect the channel to grow. A VIOOH survey of 1,050 advertisers and agencies, covered by PPC Land in March, found they expected programmatic DOOH investment to rise 44 percent on average over 18 months. The supply routes ECN lists have also been consolidating: Broadsign acquired Place Exchange in November 2025, bringing its programmatically transactable inventory to 1.8 million screens, and Vistar Media's supply became available inside DeepIntent's demand-side platform in August 2026. A buyer working in any of those platforms may see ECN office screens next to the roadside, retail and transport screens the study uses as its benchmark.

Attention as a trading currency

Lumen has spent 2026 pushing its measurement into new channels. In March, it brought attention measurement to Netflix's ad-supported inventory in the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain. In May came the Teads HomeScreen deal. The ECN study extends the same logic to a niche of out-of-home: a single media owner using a measurement vendor's benchmark to argue that its inventory deserves a premium.

The obstacle is one PPC Land has reported before. Attention metrics still lack a shared standard, as a July 2025 panel on programmatic buying made clear, with one practitioner describing an attention score built from "50 plus" inputs. A 3.4x multiple from one vendor's normative database is a useful signal for buyers who already trust that vendor's methodology. For buyers who use a different attention provider, or none, it is harder to compare with anything else on their plan.

Timeline

Summary

Who: Executive Channel Network (ECN), an office screen network in the UK, France, Germany and Belgium, and Lumen Research, the attention measurement firm that conducted the study. Lumen CEO Mike Follett and ECN Global CEO Charles Parry-Okeden commented.

What: "The Business Case for Office Attention" found that ECN's 2 square metre D6 office screens earn 3.4x the attention of comparable D6 screens in roadside, retail and transport environments, 8.3x against transport, 5.9x against shopping malls and 1.25x against large-format digital roadside, with 44% more brand recall than standard D6 DOOH.

When: ECN published the study on October 14, 2026.

Where: The study measured 603 full-time office workers in the UK, France and Germany, benchmarked against Lumen's normative database of more than 100 studies. ECN's screens are sold programmatically through Vistar Media, VIOOH, Broadsign Reach, Place Exchange and Perion, delivering more than 28 million weekly impressions across 900+ screens, according to ECN.

Why: Programmatic DOOH, sized by WOO at $1.339 billion in 2025, trades mostly through private marketplace deals, where sellers use quality evidence to negotiate. ECN is positioning the attention multiple as that evidence, though the release does not disclose the measurement method, fieldwork dates, pricing or who funded the study.