The Human Attention Span is Shrinking – Here's What that Means for Marketers

The Topline

For today’s marketers, attention is the ultimate currency — people trade their attention for information, access, rewards or entertainment. But it’s becoming an increasingly scarce commodity: the average human attention span is just eight seconds, less than that of a goldfish. Consumers are bombarded with 3,000+ commercial messages every day. And the impact of social media cannot be overlooked, as brevity-optimized content, rapid context shifting, and addictive feedback loops condition people to be constantly alert while simultaneously scattered in where they direct their attention.

There is a business case for elevating attention. As a metric for marketers, attention predicts branding outcomes three times better than viewability, and attention metrics are shown to be 180% more correlated with ROI. In several companies, attention is being appropriately prioritized over reach.   A tsunami of technological innovations is making traditional marketing tactics inefficient, and people are learning to tune these messages out. The fragmentation of consumer attention will only increase with the rise of easily accessible GenAI content creation tools, making it critical for brands to find unique ways to break through the noise.

The Essential Truth      

If a brand is lucky enough to capture those coveted seconds of attention, how do they utilize and optimize those scarce seconds? To engage people in a meaningful way, brands should not only be compelling in their messaging but creative in their delivery, meeting consumers where they are. Today’s consumers gravitate toward media that provide short bursts of satisfaction, feel personally relevant, facilitate connection, and allow them to multitask across devices, like snackable video content. Anything that feels inauthentic, one-size-fits-all or demands too much sustained focus gets tuned out.

My Take

Relevance and authenticity are key to winning in the attention economy. We must transcend traditional marketing. Offering highly immersive, relevant experiences can allow brands to completely engage consumers and cater to their passions—here are three ways to maximize impact with the minimal attention consumers are willing to give:

Experiential marketing: Experiential marketing brings people closer to the things they care about. The most effective activations center around experiences that offer real value, allowing brands to grab consumers’ attention and strengthen brand affection. For example, to celebrate the 150th anniversary of its iconic 501 jeans, Levi’s held a 9-day event complete with a museum, performances and jean customization — creating a true celebration for brand advocates to participate in.

One way we’re bringing experiential marketing to the forefront is by evolving our iconic “Priceless” campaign into an experience-led marketing platform centered around ten passion points – sports, culinary, music and the like. In fact, the majority of our Mastercard marketing dollars are now spent on experiential marketing vs. traditional advertising. We focus on creating amazing experiences for cardholders—whether meeting golf legends at St. Andrews, riding a hot air balloon over Cappadocia or enjoying yoga 1,100 feet in the air in NYC.

Multisensory branding: People absorb information through all their senses—sound, sight, taste, touch and smell. Yet, many of our strongest triggers for memory and connection remain underutilized by marketers. For instance, people remember 5% of what they see and 25% of what they smell. And still, most marketers focus primarily on just two senses: sound and sight, failing to fully leverage these senses in scientifically grounded ways. The potential for multisensory marketing is huge and has the ability to cut through clutter and create more memorable brand associations.

 Today, Mastercard’s distinctive 1.3-second melody accompanies every transaction—driving greater assurance and trust. This is just one part of a comprehensive, and evolving, sonic identity that is embedded into programs like the Mastercard Artist Accelerator; users create a fully personalized music track, complete with our sonic DNA, when claiming the Mastercard Music Pass. And in 2021, we introduced two Priceless fragrances. We try to bring our brand to life through all five senses.

 We’re not alone. McDonald’s has used scent as a marketing tool in its stores — particularly the familiar smell of its French fries — to make customers feel happy and welcome. In fact, the fast food giant proved that the smell of its French fries is as recognizable as its logo and jingle when it set up a series of plain yellow and red billboards in The Netherlands earlier this year that diffused the scent. As it turns out, most passersby recognized the scent as McDonald’s fries.  

Bridging entertainment: Not surprisingly, bringing consumers content that entertains and delights is an increasingly powerful way to reinforce brand messaging. There are truly endless examples of this — from the movie “Barbie” to subtler integrations like product placements or branded content.

 At the GRAMMY Awards this year, we reimagined the commercial break. Instead of running a typical ad, we used our spot to debut SZA's newest single, 'Saturn.' This allowed music lovers to hear a new track from the show's most-nominated artist. The dreaded commercial break transformed into entertainment that truly captured people's attention.

Long Story Short

The forces driving down attention spans, such as information overload, proliferation of digital media and dopamine-driven feedback loops on social media, will only intensify. Particularly with 37% of internet users deploying ad blockers, it will take more than conventional advertising to capture consumer attention.

 As marketers, we need to take creative routes to engage consumers and make a lasting impact. We need to show up where consumers are, in a way that’s authentic and relevant.