From shared screens to solitary scrolling

We should commend the IPA for standing up for continuity amongst all the cacophonous claims of change in the market. Making Sense 8 makes a good case for stability in the media market. 2026's data is much like 2025's. Change is gradual and incremental rather than radical and disorienting. We will sing no requiem for any particular medium this year.

This stability fits neatly with Lumen Research's attention data, which has shown great consistency in how people engage with the ads they are exposed to. Over the last decade, it seems that people have remained as skilled as ever at avoiding advertising across media.

But while much has stayed the same, some things have changed. The very consistency of most of the Making Sense data helps make the real shifts more salient.

The first big change is between generations

For young people, advertising is primarily mediated via the mobile phone. 49% of their media time is spent on their mobile phones, and only 21% on 'big screen' TV. For older groups, this proportion is almost exactly reversed, although ad exposure on smartphones is growing significantly amongst them too.

This has a big implication for what advertising is amongst both these groups. The prototypical ad for older readers (including this older writer) is a 30-second TV ad. That's what comes to mind when we talk about advertising, and that's where we start when we develop advertising creative or media plans. How can I drive growth for this brand via a funny or emotive (or at least memorable) half-minute vignette? How can I get this vignette in front of as many people as possible in the most cost-effective way?

But for younger readers, this is not their primary template for advertising. For mobile-first audiences, their induction into the world of advertising is far more fragmented: shards of short-form video that can be swiped past at will. They don't talk about the ads that they saw on telly last night, because they weren't watching telly last night. Influencers and OOH have more to teach us here than Hollywood or Coronation Street.

And this has enormous implications for the making of memories. We have worked on the assumption that brands supply a 'loading dose' of memory formation via TV advertising, and then supply a 'maintenance dose' of reminder ads via supplementary media (including social media). But if many of our most important audiences are not watching TV, how can we inject the initial bolus of meaning into our audiences?

The second big change is in combining generations

Different generations have always consumed different media, but there was a time when advertisers could hope to reach multiple audiences through the same media at the same time. Even ten years ago, there was a 44% overlap in the reach media between age cohorts and a 58% correlation in the time spent with shared media.

This is no longer the case. The overlap in time spent with the same media has dropped to 21%, and more and more media consumption is solitary, especially amongst younger consumers.

This has great implications for advertising. We are frequently tasked to create or enhance 'positional goods': commodities that command premium prices through the social value that they communicate. There is no point in owning a Rolex unless everyone else knows what a Rolex stands for. Do linens from The White Company really exist unless your guests know what The White Company means?

But shared meaning needs shared media. When I watch TV with my family, I receive two messages: one from the advertiser and one from a co-audience. I know that you know that I know that cats like Felix like Felix catfood. Solitary media consumption muffles this secondary, public communication. How can I be sure about the value of a signifier if I am the only one to receive the signal?

These two tectonic trends, the splintering of attention to advertising across a million little shards, and the shattering of 'common attention', pose important challenges for brand builders. Amongst much consistency, these are changes worthy of the name.

Mike Follett is CEO of Lumen

The opinions expressed here are those of the authors and were submitted in accordance with the IPA terms and conditions regarding the uploading and contribution of content to the IPA newsletters, IPA website, or other IPA media, and should not be interpreted as representing the opinion of the IPA.