Advertisers are struggling as people’s attention span to ads decreases

The first set of articles indicating a reduction in people’s attention span to one of a goldfish, were published around three to four years ago and were directly considered to be myths. This steered people to overlook the fact that people’s attention span did go down but not in the way they thought it did. With today’s advancements in technology and social media platforms with the addition of most of the reviews and statistics being pulled from videos by almost all the ad-agencies are indeed confirming that the smaller the length of the video the more conversions it has, keeping into perspective the video’s content quality and message.

The focus falls on the improvement in the visuals of the ads created. Visually engaging ads, even if looked at for only one second can make a great difference on user engagement and conversion rates. Simply put, the better the visual of the ad, the more likely it is for the person viewing it to engage or even only draw their attention to it long enough for brand awareness.

Advertisers now have to compete in order to win the audience’s attention. This competition is tackled by complex marketing and targeting strategies in creating impactful content and competing on strategical ad placements.

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Latest research shows that people’s attention span decreased drastically in the past couple of years at an alarming rate. At least 40% of people interviewed admitted that they really struggle and concentrate to stay focused on basic tasks. The percentage almost double with the among the early tech adopters to around 75%. On the other hand, a recent study found that early tech adopters and heavy social media users are better at identifying what they really want/need. Meaning, their brain can process the ad placement they see even if they view it for a short period of time (two seconds or less)

There are two types of video ads on the rise, these ad placements have been proven in numerous studies to be the most effective when it comes to brand awareness and target advertisements, the 15-second video and the 6 seconds follow up ad. The 15-second video was seen to be the most effective, and the 30-second video was seen as the least effective one. Whereas the 6-second video ads were seen to produce a more positive impact when it was used to reinforce an already delivered message.

A research was done from Nielsen show that on average 40% of all brand recall, 20% of all brand awareness and 25% of all purchases are driven from video impressions which range between one and three seconds.

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Image Credit: Pixabay

A study was made by Microsoft Canada that actually show how destructive technology be to the average attention span of a person and if we go back in time to 2013 the average attention span decreased below one of a goldfish. Watch this short Youtube Video below.

In conclusion, an extremely large number of ads are being thrown in the content stream that are of low to no value due to lack of targeting and as a result, people are becoming less prone to view these ads which reduces the attention span to mere seconds. The only thing advertising companies can do now is to have a well structured and consistent strategy delivering relevant and engaging content.

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