Attention Span of a Goldfish!

Ten years ago the average attention span was apparently 12 minutes. Now, it has apparently gone down to 5 according in the article in the Telegraph. According to Brian Vander Zanden from the University of Texas, he claims adults have the attention span of 20 minutes. However on the internet, our attention span is back down to five minutes. And now thanks to the addictive nature of web browsing, that same attention span shrinks down to a mere 9 seconds, which is the same attention span of a goldfish!

Keeping that in mind we are bombarded with advertising. Most of which have short messages, but just how much is enough? According to a study done by Yankelvich Research, it claims we can be bombarded from anywhere between 3,000 and 20,000 messages a day. We only actialy acknowledge or process ads somewhere I the low hundreds.

 There is the question is there too much advertising? Is all this advertising the cause of our attention span being too short? Or is the advertising causing our attention span to shorten due to the onslaught of information being thrown at us?

By 2016, the projected amount of money spent on advertising on a global scale is slanted to hit 660 Billion dollars!

Advertising comes in many forms, some of which costs money, and some others that are free. These forms include: Television, Radio, Online, Mobile and landline telephony, magazine and newspaper, direct mail. Billboard, busboard, display, in taxis, in buses, in store, in malls, in planes, in bathrooms, in product placements, word of mouth, stick a message ads, and user generated ads.

So back to my previous two questions on whether we have too much advertising, my answer is no. There is not too much advertising, but there is too much bad advertising and not enough creative advertising. There is a bunch of bad, and useless advertising out there, but on the plus side to that it makes the few good advertisements stand out. I feel we don’t have enough creative and concept driven creative advertising that can almost be considered artwork in order to promote a brand and get your attention. I also believe that our attention spans are short because of the nature of convenience and how everything is presented orally, visually and is summarized. Before we used to have to read and get into what is being talked about to retain common information, so based on the trend of technology and how information was presented faster and quicker, we got accustomed to that and our attention span decreased. It may also be decreased due to that fact that we are purposely reducing the amount of sensorial noise we take in on a daily basis, we can’t afford to pay attention to everything, there is just too much to take in. I believe if we continue to tune out the noise and volume around us, only the bright, creative, and attention grabbing information out there will raise our attention. This might resolve in more ads trying to grab our attention, but only the good and creative ads will be successful. I believe that most ads are ineffective. If brands reduced advertising costs by 10 percent, would their profits drop correspondingly? Maybe, but probably not. I believe the only drastic change would be if they eliminated ads that people seek out such as eliminating their company information in the yellow pages, that would make a much higher impact on their company then eliminating ads that seek other people such as inside buses which most people don’t pay attention to and even if they did they won’t have the time to write down or remember the contact information. Where as in the yellow pages the person is seeking out advertisements, is willing to write down the contact information and familiarize themselves with the brand.