The Attention Economy: Definition, Examples, and Why It Matters in Marketing

Marketers today operate in a world where audiences are no longer short on content – they are short on attention. Every platform, creator, brand and algorithm competes for the same limited cognitive resource. The result is a fundamental shift: reach alone is no longer enough, impressions no longer guarantee impact, and traditional advertising models increasingly fail to meet their goals.

As Wiktoria Wójcik, co-founder of inStreamly, observes in Attention Economy: The New Reality of B2C Marketing:

“In the era of informational overload and fragmented attention, traditional marketing methods are losing their effectiveness at a dramatic pace. The attention economy has become a fundamental framework for understanding today’s challenges.”

This article explains what the attention economy is, how it works, why it reshapes marketing, and why gaming and livestreaming have emerged as the most effective environments for earning high-quality attention.

What Is the Attention Economy?

The term attention economy describes an economic framework in which human attention functions as a scarce and highly valuable resource. First conceptualized by Nobel laureate Herbert Simon, it rests on a simple paradox:

Information is abundant. Human attention is not.

In the digital ecosystem – where infinite content competes for finite cognitive bandwidth – attention becomes the true currency of the internet. Users “pay” attention in exchange for free services such as social platforms, search engines or streaming apps; platforms then monetize that attention through advertising.

Key pillars of the attention economy

• Scarcity: Humans have limited cognitive capacity to process stimuli.
• Competition: Every digital environment competes for micro-moments of engagement.
• Value: Advertising models are built entirely around capturing, retaining and monetizing attention.

In practice, this means marketers are no longer fighting content clutter – they are fighting cognitive overload, habit-driven scrolling, and algorithmic prioritization that rewards only the most engaging formats.

Why Attention Has Become the Most Valuable Marketing Resource

Before diving into specific drivers, it’s essential to recognize that the core issue is not simply media cost growth. The real shift is structural: reach no longer guarantees impact. Even large-scale exposures frequently fail to generate meaningful attention, engagement or memory. 

 

As audiences fragment across platforms and shield themselves from interruptions, brands must invest more to achieve the same level of cognitive presence they once gained automatically. Attention – not impressions – has become the true limiting factor in marketing performance.

1. Advertising cost inflation

The cost of acquiring attention is rising across digital channels. According to Attention Economy: The New Reality of B2C Marketing, CPC increased by 5.2% in 2024 year over year, while CPM rose by 11.3%.

Platforms show divergent cost trends:

• CPC on Google Search increased by 10%.
• CPC on TikTok increased by 18%.
• CPM on Snapchat surged by 47%.
• Even within Meta’s ecosystem, Facebook CPC declined slightly while Instagram CPC rose by more than 10%.

This is not marginal fluctuation – it is structural inflation driven by competition for a shrinking pool of user attention.

2. Fragmentation of media and shortening attention spans

Digital environments accelerate cognitive switching, reducing sustained attention to micro-windows measured in seconds. For Generation Z, the average active attention given to an online ad is just 1.3 seconds.

Neuroscience reinforces this phenomenon. Research from the team of Prof. Daniel Levitin (McGill University) shows that multitasking rapidly depletes the brain’s energy reserves, pushing neuronal glucose consumption far above natural regeneration levels. Continuous task-switching effectively “burns through” cognitive fuel, impairing concentration and decision-making.

This explains why disruptive ads – once the hallmark of effective marketing – now often fail. They demand cognitive resources the brain is actively trying to protect.

3. Digital ad resistance and avoidance

Younger audiences, especially Gen Z, have developed advanced “ad immunity”:

• 66% use ad blockers.
• They consciously filter out brand messages and scroll past anything perceived as irrelevant.
• Only 36% of consumers trust traditional brand advertising, and the percentage is lower for Gen Z.

Traditional advertising formats no longer align with how young audiences consume media, choose products or navigate online spaces.

Attention Economy Explained: What Brands Really Compete For

In the attention economy, brands are not competing for clicks or views – they compete for time, relevance, and emotional resonance.

1. The fight for milliseconds

Platforms optimize every pixel and algorithm for micro-retention. A two-second delay in engagement can make content invisible. Marketers must design communication not just to attract attention, but to hold it.

2. From attention to “attention restoration”

Key insight emerging in neuromarketing – brands may become restorers of attention rather than extractors.

Content that offers cognitive value – education, entertainment, emotional clarity – produces positive neurological associations. In contrast, intrusive ads trigger measurable stress responses, including elevated cortisol levels.

The future belongs to brands that reduce cognitive overload, not add to it.

How the Attention Economy Changes Marketing

The shift to an attention-first landscape means brands can no longer rely on reach, repetition or media saturation to influence audiences. Simply being present in the feed or occupying screen real estate does not translate into cognitive impact. Modern audiences reward relevance, emotional resonance and contextual fit – and they instantly filter out anything that feels forced, generic or interruptive. 

 

As a result, effective marketing now begins with reducing friction, respecting the user’s mental state and integrating naturally into their existing behaviour patterns.

1. Decline of push-ads

Classic interruptive advertising is increasingly ineffective, especially for Gen Z. They reject anything that disrupts flow or feels unnatural within their digital environment.

According to Attention Economy: The New Reality of B2C Marketing:

• 61% of gamers say intrusive ads ruin the experience.
• 44% say most ads are irrelevant.
• 82% say in-game branded integrations do not make the experience worse.

This is a structural shift – people opt into experiences that add value, not interruptions.

2. Authenticity as the new currency

92% of Gen Z indicate that authenticity is their top value, ranking above future plans or wealth. This reshapes the brand-audience relationship:

• Brands must speak with communities, not to them.
• Creator-driven formats outperform polished brand assets.
• Earned attention replaces forced attention.

3. Rise of attention metrics

Traditional KPIs – reach, impressions, frequency – no longer reflect real impact. Attention-first campaigns measure:

• active time spent with the brand,
• depth of interaction,
• viewer participation,
• contribution to the entertainment or community,
• meaningful recall and affinity uplift.

This shift rewards immersive, contextual and interactive formats.

Why Gaming and Livestreaming Are the New Attention Hubs

If attention is the currency, gaming is the modern-day stock exchange. The Attention Economy report highlights:

• 3+ billion gamers globally.
• The global gaming market reached $219B in value in 2024.
• Gaming audiences spend 16.5 hours per week playing.
• They spend more time watching gaming content (8.5h) than playing (7.4h).
• 50% of internet users worldwide watch livestreams weekly.

Gaming provides deep, continuous engagement – something social feeds or short-form video can rarely achieve.

Livestreaming: natural antidote to the attention crisis

According to the Live Streaming Trends 2025 Report:

• 73% of viewers actively participate in chat.
• 62% have abandoned traditional TV altogether.
• 79% of Twitch viewers perceive ads as a way to support creators.
• Viewers spend hours, not seconds, with their favourite streamers.

This is high-quality, high-trust attention – earned through community, entertainment and authenticity.

Why brands win more attention in gaming

Gaming formats achieve minutes, not seconds, of branded attention:

• Traditional digital ads: 1.7-2.5 seconds of attention.
• Gaming activations: 26-47 minutes of sustained engagement (per Attention Economy report).

The difference is not incremental – it’s exponential.

The Attention Economy in Practice: How Brands Earn Attention (Not Demand It)

Below are real use cases from inStreamly’s ecosystem (non-cited internal knowledge), illustrating how technology + context + culture enable attention-first marketing.

1. Contextual relevance (reacting to what happens on stream)

• Danone “Small Hunger” (FMCG): reactive overlays triggered when Fortnite players lost energy  –  perfect contextual alignment.
• AlgoFlex (Pharma): voice-triggered NPC ambassadors appeared when streamers expressed discomfort  –  culturally intuitive and unobtrusive.

2. Interactive engagement (audiences participate in the experience)

• Cheetos Chepard Game: a Twitch-integrated virtual pet controlled by chat commands; 50,000+ interactions and multi-million reach.

3. Immersive branded environments

• PKO Bank Polski (Banking): a Fortnite world where players spent 26 minutes learning financial basics.
• NERF City: six interconnected Fortnite maps forming a brand metaverse.

4. Value-driven branding

• Mountain Dew: a creator education program delivering real career value, generating 71M+ views and +33% YoY sales.

These examples demonstrate the strategic principle of the attention economy – audiences reward brands that make the experience better – not louder.

How to Measure Success in the Attention Economy

As audiences become more selective and platforms compete for every second of focus, measurement must shift from quantity to quality. Marketing effectiveness is increasingly defined by how deeply, not how widely, audiences interact with branded experiences.

Attention metrics

Effective attention-first campaigns track:

• Time spent with branded content
• Active viewer participation
• Chat interaction rates
• Contextual recall uplift
• Brand affinity tied to experience
• Long-term emotional memory

These metrics correlate far more strongly with consideration and purchase intent than traditional impression-based KPIs.

Livestream-specific metrics

The Live Streaming Trends 2025 data shows why livestreaming provides uniquely strong attention signals:

• High chat participation
• Positive sentiment toward creator-supportive advertising
• Deep time-on-stream behaviour

This is not display advertising. It’s earned attention at scale.

Why the Attention Economy Matters for the Future of Marketing

The attention economy forces marketers to rethink everything: media planning, creative strategy, brand experience and measurement. The new competitive advantage is not visibility – it is relevance, authenticity, and value creation.

Brands win when:

• they integrate instead of interrupt,
• restore attention instead of draining it,
• participate in culture instead of pushing messages,
• and create experiences people want, not ads they avoid.

Gaming and livestreaming are no longer niche channels. They are the most attention-rich media environments available today – and the only ones where brands consistently earn minutes, not seconds, of high-value engagement.

In the era where attention determines market success, the question shifts from:
“How do we reach people?” to “What do we offer that earns their attention?”

Sources

• inStreamly Live Streaming Trends 2025 – data on global streaming behaviour, viewer engagement, advertising sentiment and platform trends.
• Stuyvesant Spectator  –  How Do Our Brains Manage Information Overload? – neuroscientific overview of cognitive overload, multitasking and glucose depletion in the brain
• New Game + Attention Economy – overview of rising ad costs, declining effectiveness of traditional channels, and the shift toward attention-based metrics, with insights on Gen Z behavior and gaming as a high-attention environment.