Billions lost to dull ads: why print may be the overlooked winner in the attention economy

Advertisers are throwing away billions of dollars every year on advertising that either fails to engage consumers emotionally or is delivered in media environments where it is barely noticed. That is the conclusion of two sets of research presented at successive Cannes Lions festivals, which together shed light on a growing crisis in marketing efficiency.

In 2024, Peter Field and Adam Morgan, working with the research agency System1, warned that the financial penalty for running dull creative was staggering. A year later, Dr Karen Nelson-Field of Amplified Intelligence extended the argument to the media landscape itself, showing that a majority of digital inventory attracts little or no active attention.

New evidence from Lumen Research adds a further twist: when print advertising data are mapped onto Nelson-Field’s framework, it emerges as a medium that consistently escapes the worst of this “dull media tax”. In a market dominated by low-attention digital formats, print appears to deliver efficient and reliable returns — raising uncomfortable questions about how marketers allocate their budgets.

The Dull Media study: attention lost in digital formats

Dr Karen Nelson-Field of Amplified Intelligence widened the focus to media environments with her Dull Media study (Cannes 2025). It measured Attention Volume, ranking formats from “non-dull” to “extremely dull.”

 Her conclusion: 75% of audited US digital advertising receives zero active attention. For brands, that means wasted investment: dull environments consume budgets without impact, equivalent to losing 43 cents for every advertising dollar.

Lumen’s benchmarks: how much attention media really supply

Lumen Research measures attentive seconds per 1,000 impressions — the proportion of ads that are seen, multiplied by the number of seconds they are looked at. In other words, it shows how much real attention advertisers buy for every thousand ads served.

Cross-media benchmarks show:

•  TV 30″ non-skippable ≈ 6,439 attentive seconds
•  YouTube ≈ 3,377s
•  Out-of-home posters ≈ 1,610s
•  Press (print) ≈ 1,594s
•  Facebook ≈ 804s
•  Instagram ≈ 707s
•  Display banners ≈ 490s

These figures underline print’s quiet efficiency: not at the level of premium video, but far stronger than banners and much of social media.

A hybrid media future

Researchers argue that efficiency must now be measured in attentive seconds, not clicks or impressions. Bodies such as the IPA and WFA are exploring this shift, while agencies test planning models that integrate attention.

Staffan Hultén, CEO of RAM, stresses the need for balance: “The future is not binary, it is hybrid. Digital advertising has its place, but it is not the solution to everything. A print ad can create a tactile anchor. An event experience can deepen the brand relationship. A digital campaign can reinforce both.”

The importance of attention as a proxy for effectiveness is echoed by Ian Gibbs of DMA UK, who notes that 27% of entries for the DMA Awards now mention attention. Crucially, these are direct marketing cases — showing that attention is moving beyond main media into one-to-one communication.

Mike Follett of Lumen added a further dimension at Mad//Fest: “attention is more than meets the eyes — it also includes taste, haptic and audio.” As a medium, print embodies this multi-sensory quality — combining visual and tactile cues, and sometimes even auditory ones — making it a stronger competitor than formats relying only on fleeting screen views. 

A quiet strength

Advertising has always reinvented its currency: ratings in the 1950s, clicks in the 1990s, viewability in the 2010s. Now the evidence is clear that the next currency is attention.

The most efficient strategies combine channels, leveraging the strengths of each. Premium video delivers deep, sustained attention. Print delivers broad, efficient attention. Out-of-home provides reach with context. The trick is not to choose one over the other, but to restore balance after a decade of over-investment in low-attention digital formats.

Print advertising is unlikely to return to its 1980s dominance. But it does not need to. Its strength lies in efficiency: delivering cost-effective human attention in trusted environments. In a world where $189bn evaporates each year into dull creative and media, that is no small advantage.

For brands, that means re-thinking where budgets are placed. For publishers and printers, it means articulating print’s value in the language the industry is now demanding: attentive seconds.

Advertising has always been about winning a share of mind. As the new attention economy takes shape, print has a powerful story to tell: even in a digital age, ink on paper still commands time, focus and memory. In other words, attention.