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Brands Tackle Gen Z's "Persistent Attention Deficit" with New Attention Metrics
8 Aug
Summary
- Gen Z exhibits 34% lower attention than millennials online
- Ideal ad exposure time for recall is under 2 seconds, but brand favorability requires over 3 seconds
- Attention per mille (APM) metric considers attention, not just exposure
As of August 8th, 2025, advertising and marketing researchers have been exploring new metrics beyond just ad exposure to effectively reach the Gen Z cohort. Studies have discovered that Gen Z, currently in their late teens and early 20s, exhibit a "persistent attention deficit" problem when engaging with content online, paying 34% lower attention compared to millennials.
To address this challenge, companies like Lumen, WPP Media, and Snap Inc. have introduced a new "attention metric" to better understand the effectiveness of advertising. Lumen's eye-tracking research on a group of 3,200 individuals in India found that brief ad exposures under 2 seconds are effective for building ad recall, while other goals like increasing brand favorability require over 3 seconds of sustained attention.
These findings align with a recent report by The Trade Desk, which stated that ad fatigue is soaring in India, with 2 in 3 Indians saying they get annoyed when seeing the same ad repeatedly on a single channel, and 70% reporting that they tune out altogether. The report suggests an audience-first advertising strategy that utilizes multiple digital channels to reach consumers.
Experts believe that even a marginal 5% improvement in attention can lead to twice the brand gains. The new "attention per mille" or APM metric, which considers attention and not just exposure, aims to address the gap in India's ad measurement landscape, where there is no industry-recognized measurement system.
