Digital advertising is in a paradox. People feel more open to ads than they did a year ago, and comfort with AI-driven creative is rising. But openness isn’t translating into deeper attention. Most ads still pass by unnoticed in the flow of search, social, and entertainment. Receptivity has become the baseline, and attention is now the differentiator.

This shift is shaping how teams plan, where they invest, and which formats have the best chance of being processed rather than simply delivered.

Ad Receptivity Is Rising, but Attention Remains Scarce

Sentiment toward advertising has improved. eMarketer reports that 57% of consumers feel positively toward ads, up ten points from the previous year. Openness toward generative AI in advertising shows a similar climb: 68% of consumers view its use positively for 2025, while confidence among marketers has risen to 75%.

These numbers reflect a growing familiarity with personalisation, automated creative production, and data-driven formats. Digital ads no longer feel novel or intrusive; they feel expected. But familiarity doesn’t guarantee focus.

The same eMarketer article highlights that attention remains limited despite rising openness. Fewer than half of US consumers say they notice ads in search results. Around 40% report that social ads rarely register and 93% of people skip or block ads when they can. The behaviour suggests that while resistance is lower, people apply strong filtering habits - often unconsciously - when scanning digital environments.

These patterns show that rising receptivity changes the conditions in which ads are delivered, but it doesn’t automatically increase the attention people give them.

Relevant article: Ad Fatigue in Digital Marketing: Why It Happens and How to Fix It

Why Fragmented Channels Make Consistent Advertising Hard  

As people move continuously across platforms, they expect ideas - not just assets - to stay consistent. Yet this remains difficult to achieve in practice.

Econsultancy found that only 14% of marketing-led organisations integrate campaigns across all channels, even though most believe their strategies are aligned. Kantar’s global analysis shows a similar pattern: while brands describe their activity as integrated, only 58% of consumers feel the messaging they see connects across touchpoints.

The gap matters because coherence reduces cognitive load. Kantar Millward Brown’s AdReaction research shows that integrated campaigns have been found to perform about 31% better in building brands than non-integrated ones, underscoring the value of coherence across channels. The mechanism is straightforward: consistency accelerates recognition, which helps ideas land even when attention is partial or fleeting.

In a fragmented landscape, coherence acts as reinforcement. It creates familiarity that works with selective attention rather than against it.

For a deeper look at coherence across channels, read our article Think Bigger Than Just Online: Why an Omnichannel Strategy Is Pivotal.

Where Consumers Prefer Ads vs. Where Brands Actually Spend  

Kantar’s Media Reactions 2025 report highlights a clear disconnect between where people feel most comfortable seeing ads and where organisations concentrate their spending. Consumers rank Amazon, Snapchat, and TikTok as the environments where ads feel most relevant and least intrusive. These platforms benefit from strong contextual alignment: Amazon supports decision-making, and TikTok and Snapchat lean into short-form, entertainment-driven discovery.

Investment patterns, however, continue to centre on YouTube, Instagram, and Google. These platforms offer scale, established measurement systems, and familiar buying workflows, which explains why budgets remain anchored there. But scale alone does not guarantee attention. When investment leans toward environments with lower natural receptivity, teams must work harder to secure the same level of engagement.

The gap matters because receptivity shapes how people process commercial messages. When the environment aligns with the task a person is already performing - shopping, searching, or browsing for entertainment - attention forms more naturally.  

The Ad Formats Most Likely to Capture Real Attention  

Attention often comes from formats that align with how people already use a platform. Public attention studies help explain why. Lumen’s research shows that a large share of technically “viewable” ads are never actually seen, with around 70% of viewable impressions receiving no visual attention. This gap highlights how much placement, format, and context influence whether someone notices an ad at all.  

Lumen and WARC have both reported that environments and formats that people actively choose to engage with - such as creator-led content, native videos, or advertising embedded within entertainment experiences - are more likely to generate meaningful attention, which in turn correlates with stronger business outcomes. WARC’s analysis also links higher-attention placements with greater incremental profit, showing that attention is not just a media metric but a predictor of commercial impact.

Attention strengthens when creative choices and formats align with the context in which people engage. Selecting formats that reflect natural user behavior can increase the likelihood that messages are noticed, understood, and retained.

Relevant Article: Native Ads vs. Product Ads: Why Unpolished Creative and Product Ads Together Drive the Best Results

How Generative AI Is Changing Creative and Why Trust Still Matters  

Generative AI now plays a growing role in paid media, and sentiment toward the technology continues to improve. Kantar’s Media Reactions 2025 report shows that 68% of consumers view the possibilities of generative AI positively, and confidence among senior decision-makers has risen to 75%. This shift reflects increasing familiarity with AI-assisted creative processes and a broader acceptance of automation within advertising workflows.

At the same time, expectations around transparency remain high. The same report notes that 57% of consumers continue to express concern about fake or misleading AI-generated ads. This caution underscores the importance of using the technology with clear boundaries, especially in contexts where accuracy and trust play a central role in how messages are received.

Together, these shifts show how AI is becoming part of routine creative production while still requiring clear boundaries around accuracy and trust.

How to Build an Attention-First Media Strategy for 2026  

Audit the Current Media Mix for Attention Gaps

Review where budgets are concentrated, which formats dominate delivery, and how consistently messages appear across channels. Identifying disconnects between high-delivery environments and high-attention environments helps teams refine allocation, creative adaptation, and sequencing with greater precision.

Rebalance Budgets toward High-Receptivity Environments

Shift a portion of investment to platforms such as Amazon, TikTok, and Snapchat, where users show higher openness to commercial messages. Even modest reallocation can strengthen the overall attention profile of a media plan.

Prioritise Formats that Align with Natural User Behaviour

Select creator-led videos, native in-feed placements, and integrated ads that mirror how people already engage with a platform. These formats reduce passive avoidance and increase the chances that messages are processed.

Create Coherence across Every Touchpoint

Align messaging so each channel reinforces the same strategic direction. When signals remain consistent, people recognize and understand ideas more quickly. Coherence helps campaigns build momentum as audiences encounter them across different environments.

Use AI to Elevate Execution, Not Overwhelm It

Apply generative tools selectively to enhance creative quality and maintain clarity across campaigns. AI adds the most value when it supports tasks such as producing variant assets for different placements, adapting messaging for channel-specific contexts, or accelerating optimisation cycles without shifting the core idea. A measured approach helps teams scale creative output while preserving consistency, recognisability, and trust across the full media mix.

The Opportunity Ahead: Planning for Receptivity and Attention

Rising ad receptivity signals that people are more comfortable with advertising than they were even a year ago. They understand its role in the digital world and show more openness to new formats and creative technologies. But receptivity is only the starting point. It creates permission, not impact. The real work begins in how teams translate that permission into experiences that feel considered, coherent, and aligned with how people actually move through digital environments.

The opportunity now is to treat receptivity as a foundation to build on rather than an indicator of easy wins. When organisations design campaigns that respect context, choose formats that support attention, and use technology with intention, they create messages that feel relevant enough to notice - and valuable enough to remember. In a landscape where acceptance is rising but attentiveness remains selective, the advantage will sit with those who plan for both.

Looking to reshape your media mix for stronger attention outcomes? Reach out to us!

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About Crealytics

Crealytics is an award-winning full-funnel digital marketing agency fueling the profitable growth of over 100 well-known B2C and B2B businesses, including ASOS, The Hut Group, Staples and Urban Outfitters. A global company with an inclusive team of 100+ international employees, we operate from our hubs in Berlin, New York, Chicago, London, and Mumbai.