WritingReading path

AI, Attention & EARO.

Cognitive science applied to advertising — relevance realization, attention as a filtering mechanism, the EARO framework (Exposure → Attention → Relevance → Outcome), and what changes when AI becomes the relevance engine.

8 essays in this path

of 95 published · 2023–2025

Signature figure
A lens focusing 8 parallel rays, one per essay, onto a single point: exposure becomes attention How AI will transform the future of digital marketing? Is 2024 the year of the Federated Learning ie "Year of Mobile ML"? Revolutionizing Digital Marketing: How AI is Redefining SEO and SEM in the Era of Instant Answers The Dawn of Artificial General Intelligence Guide: How I’d Build a Delta Air Lines Campaign for Possible in Miami Attention Isn’t Enough—The Future of Marketing is Relevance Relevance Realization: The Cognitive Science of Attention in the Age of AGI and Advertising Behavioral Prediction Framework for Advertising Exposure Attention 8 essays, one point
Cognitive science applied to media — relevance over reach.
ATTENTION & RELEVANCE overwhelming world · impressions relevance-weighted engagement Exposure — contextual reach: real-time signals (web traffic, social trends) optimize the initial encounter so the message lands in the right context. E · STAGE 1 Exposure contextual reach right context, right audience Attention — predictive processing: the system anticipates behavior and reduces "surprise" by aligning content with expectations. Attention is a relevance engine, not a spotlight. A · STAGE 2 Attention predictive processing not impressions Relevance realization — the load-bearing center: the system filters for salience, "optimally gripping" the audience by suppressing the irrelevant in favor of what matters. R · CORE Relevance relevance realization filters salience Outcome — collective intelligence: success emerges from distributed cognition, where AGI, human creatives, and feedback loops co-create resonant, measurable impact. O · STAGE 4 Outcome distributed cognition resonant impact recursive relevance feedback The next edge isn't reach or recall — it's relevance.
Start here · Apr 2025Signature figure Canonical first-read

Relevance Realization: The Cognitive Science of Attention in the Age of AGI and Advertising

What John Vervaeke's cognitive-science framework reveals about marketing — and why the next competitive edge isn't reach or recall, but relevance realization. Introduces the EARO framework: Exposure, Attention, Relevance, Outcome.

What matters is not just whether an ad is seen, but whether it’s seen as relevant.
Evgeny Popov
All essays

More on this path.

7 essays · newest first

2025 · 3 essays

  1. Behavioral Prediction Framework for Advertising

    A 21-dimension psychographic model — cognition, rationality, attachment, personality, temperament — for >85% engagement prediction.

  2. Attention Isn’t Enough—The Future of Marketing is Relevance

    Introducing the EARO framework — Exposure, Attention, Relevance, Outcome — with 22 metrics across four dimensions.

  3. Guide: How I’d Build a Delta Air Lines Campaign for Possible in Miami

    A walk-through of anonymized PII + psychographic profiling + LLM-driven creative for a single high-value persona.

2024 · 3 essays

  1. The Dawn of Artificial General Intelligence

    A call for artificial rationality, wisdom, and embodiment — not just artificial intelligence — as AGI approaches.

  2. Revolutionizing Digital Marketing: How AI is Redefining SEO and SEM in the Era of Instant Answers

    When AI delivers answers directly instead of links, SEO becomes about AI comprehension — not keyword density. Eight strategic shifts marketers must make as the SERP gives way to the response.

  3. Is 2024 the year of the Federated Learning ie "Year of Mobile ML"?

    Why on-device, privacy-preserving ML may finally find its mainstream year — and the five mobile use cases that prove it.

2023 · 1 essay

  1. How AI will transform the future of digital marketing?

    Five high-impact AI applications — personalization, targeting, prediction, conversational UX, content creation.

Also on this path

Not an essay — but it belongs here.

1 research paper · 4 playbooks · 1 appearance

Primary research

From writing to engagements.

The thinking on this page shows up in the vertical playbooks below — abstracted from real client engagements.

applied-work/ai-attention-earo 4 vertical playbooks
01
Audio When audio platforms fight for US brand budget, the bottleneck isn't reach — it's the buyer narrative.
02
Gaming Game advertising is now a scaled media channel — not a niche buy. Translating that into Americas GTM.
03
Attention Attention measurement is a category that has to be created — not just sold.
04
Mobile App Growth & In-App Programmatic App-first DSPs and mobile growth platforms turning existing US demand into a focused, lean commercial engine — not a cold market entry.

On stage

On stage at Verve Group and Getty Images, Cannes Lions week 2023: the “The Art of Data” panel, with Evgeny Popov as a panelist The Art of Data · Cannes · 2023
Photo: Lionel Hahn / Getty Images

The Art of Data

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