Why most of your ads never get seen

Advertising has always been about being seen.

Yet the uncomfortable truth is that most ads online are not.

The latest wave of attention research from Karen Nelson-Field’s Amplified and Connect (part of The Up&Up Group, Africa’s largest independent group of creative companies) shows that up to 80% of digital ads never register with a human audience.

For years, the industry has comforted itself with tons of funnel impressions, as if buying them guaranteed impact. What we now know, and probably what you always suspected, is that viewability does not equal attention.

This gap is more than a technicality.

It is costing brands globally an estimated $200-billion a year.

Worse still, it is not just wasted spend. When people half-see an ad or scroll past it too quickly, their brains often misattribute the memory to a competitor. In other words, brands can end up funding the salience of their rivals. That is not inefficiency, that is leakage.

“When people half-see an ad or scroll past it too quickly, their brains often misattribute the memory to a competitor. In other words, brands can end up funding the salience of their rivals.”

A first for South Africa

Until recently, all of this evidence came from overseas markets.

That changed with the first human attention data capture was conducted in South Africa.

Working with four brands across finance, telco, retail and food, the research captured real-time human attention and emotional response in digital advertising using facial recognition and biometric tracking.

The design was rigorous.

Around 800 panelists were recruited per platform, from YouTube to TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and Open Web display.

Most importantly, the testing happened in native platform environments.

Using real-time ad insertion, the creative was shown alongside other ads in people’s actual feeds, recreating the noisy, distracting conditions of everyday media use.

The result is a data set that reflects how South Africans truly engage with digital advertising, not how we imagine they might in a lab or what standard platform metrics tell us.

It marks an important step in understanding attention in our own market rather than relying only on global benchmarks.

The South African reality

In South Africa, the findings land with particular weight.

Our market performs broadly in line with global trends, but the platform dynamics here matter more than ever.

TikTok and Instagram are emerging as impact platforms, delivering bursts of active attention that help land new messages.

YouTube, especially in non-skippable formats, continues to provide the stability for storytelling.

By contrast, display and open web environments lean heavily on passive attention, making them better for reinforcement than for fresh memory building.

This has real implications for how advertisers plan.

The length of an ad can no longer be decided by legacy habits. A 30-second spot dropped into a fast-scrolling feed is like shouting into a storm.

Within two or three seconds most of the audience has moved on.

That does not make social feeds redundant, but it does mean creative needs to be fit for platform and designed for a short attention window.

On the other hand, long form video on YouTube or TV still sustains attention throughout the duration, offering space for narrative and brand building.

Media sets the rules

One of the most striking shifts in this research is how it reframes the media versus creative debate.

For years, creative agencies have argued that great ideas will cut through anywhere.

Media agencies, on the other hand, have claimed that distribution is the real driver. The reality is more balanced, but not equal. The evidence shows media sets the ceiling.

Platform, device and format determine the range of possible attention, because we’ve all been trained in our scrolling habits by the likes of Google, Meta, TikTok and your smartphone of choice.

Creative then works within that range to either make the most of the potential outcomes or squander them.

The role of distinctive branding

Another implication is the urgency of branding upfront.

Distinctive brand assets are not optional add-ons. They are the single biggest amplifier of return on investment. The threshold for forming a memory in digital environments is short, around 2.5 seconds, but drops to 1.5 seconds when strong brand assets are present.

Colours, sounds, taglines, shapes and logos need to appear early and consistently. Without them, the risk of misattribution rises sharply.

In South Africa, where category competition is fierce and brand substitution is common, this point cannot be overstated. It is not enough for an ad to be entertaining or emotional. If the brand is not present from the outset, the benefit may well accrue to someone else.

The provocation

If impressions defined an era of digital media, attention should define the next.

The reckoning is already here.

Brands that continue to buy for impressions to build brand awareness without questioning their value will keep leaking money and salience to competitors.

Those that learn to plan and design for attention will not only spend more effectively, they will win the battle for memory.

So the question is not whether the Attention Revolution is coming. It is whether you are ready for it.

 Scott Reinders is the COO for Connect, the media agency in The Up&Up Group. 

BUSINESS REPORT