Gone In 6 Seconds: The Curse of Digital Engagement

A cat is almost never fully asleep. Well, at least not sleeping deeply as you or I would understand it, anyway. There’s something embedded in the evolutionary biology of our feline friends wherein they’re constantly on alert for predators - even whilst taking a snooze. At just a moment’s notice, they’re ready to spring up and respond to threats (or to do something amusing for clout on TikTok). 

I’ve had cats on the brain recently, because I’ve been wondering if there’s a similar dynamic in the way we interact with the media in 2024. Now rewired by years of scrolling, swiping, and generally switching between apps, posts, and comments sections, our brains are in a permanent state of alertness. Flitting between memes, breaking news, and romantic partners at the trigger flick of a thumb, we are engaged with content in the same way that a cat is engaged with sleep. Technically present, but our focus is standing at the door with its bags packed, passive-aggressively tapping its watch in anticipation of the next destination. 

For anyone producing content designed to engage people, this might be a problem. Snazzy bar charts and graphs powered by data from platforms like TikTok, Meta, and LinkedIn assure us that our content is being ‘viewed’ a dizzying number of times.

But there’s a tricky question at the heart of this for advertisers about whether being ‘viewed’ online is the same thing as being truly seen. Are digital ads blasting through the background noise like a bolt of lightning, or are they drifting past our numb, glazed-over eyes like a raindrop on a window pane? 

First, the case for the defence. According to research published on Statista, the average US adult is projected to spend just shy of two and a half hours watching traditional TV each day by 2025, compared to four hours spent online. If advertising is about putting your brand in front of its audience, that audience is statistically far more likely to be online than anywhere else. 

And by the admittedly not-lofty standards of our current economic situation, this is something of a booming business. The US’ Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that the demand for jobs in digital marketing will leap up by 10% by 2026, a rate higher than average across the country. And within that 10%, the most in-demand skill sets will include ‘mobile marketing professionals’ and ‘social media marketers’. In other words, get ready to see an even greater focus on online marketing than we’re already seeing today. 

But now, the case for the prosecution. A 2019 study found that the effectiveness of advertising on Facebook had been overestimated by a margin of, er, 4,000%. No, that isn’t a typo. Meta, for its part, today simply says that “most ads see the best performance with an audience size of 2-10 million”.

The trouble many campaigns on platforms like Facebook have is that they lean into targeting, or in other words attempting to connect with the folks most likely to buy their product. The problem is that, because of the imperfect nature of third-party data, the people considered ‘most likely’ to buy something are often people who have in fact already bought it. 

It’s a universal experience. Last year, having purchased an engagement ring for my now-fiancée (your congratulations are warmly received), I was pursued around the internet for months by ads imploring me to buy another engagement ring. For whom, exactly? Did these jewellers really have such little faith in the longevity of my matrimony, or is this an example of a crippling flaw in the way we advertise online? It’s the same reason why so many of us encounter ads for holidays we’ve already booked, or find we’re offered a great ‘deal’ on something only after buying it at full price. Honestly, it’s worthy of an Alanis Morissette lyric. 

This can be frustrating, and my theory is that it degrades brands’ reputations – a feeling which drifts beyond the ads themselves towards a bigger sense of tired distrust. This creates a negative spiral which, in turn, makes us less likely to connect with advertising. 

It’s almost as if we’re being trained to ignore online ads. Anecdotally, I’ve heard from people who claim to flick their thumbs the nanosecond they see the word ‘sponsored’ appear on a piece of content. I’m sure you, too, are familiar with the phenomenon whereby time slows to a crawl as we stare at the ‘Skip Ad in 6 seconds’ button in the corner of a YouTube pre-roll. Rather than watching the ad, millions of us are watching the countdown to skipping past it instead. 

In that context, it’s understandable why so many in the industry hold firm to the belief that digital ads need to engage audiences immediately. They jump out at us, lurching for our eyeballs with all the grace of a reversing dump-truck without any tires on. 

So are we doomed to keep repeating this cycle, or is there a way to break out of it? Happily, I think that there is. And even more happily, I reckon we might be closer to it than many realise. 

Because ultimately, we are not really sleeping cats. Although the argument that we’re all addicted to short-form content in an always-online media environment is a tempting one, I don’t buy it. If you account for the moments which have really dominated culture in recent years across every demographic, there’s a trend towards longform (sometimes very longform) narrative content. To pluck a random example, Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department demands over two hours of Swifties’ time over the course of its 31 tracks. Whether it be audiences flocking to ‘Barbenheimer’ or more recently glued to the TV to binge-watch Baby Reindeer and Fallout, we’ve proven that we can be very generous with our time when we want to be. 

Within the ad industry, the LBB office has swooned in recent weeks over well-made branded content for the likes of Montblanc via Wes Anderson and the unexpectedly comedic stylings of LYNX. In fact, I’d argue that the recent controversy regarding Apple’s iPad ad is further proof that audiences really are paying attention.

So if advertisers want to snatch a moment of our time, they should continue to treat us like sleeping cats. But if they want to speak to us for a full minute – maybe even three or four – then there’s a lot to be said for treating us like real, curious, interested humans instead.