The attention shift reshaping publishing and advertising
Opinion
Video, first-party data, and experiential are increasingly overlapping. Consumers move between formats without paying much attention to their boundaries, writes Reach’s strategy director.
Spend enough time looking at how people move through media now, and a pattern starts to emerge. Attention hasn’t disappeared, but it doesn’t stay in one place for very long.
People still read, watch, scroll, and share. The difference is how quickly those behaviours blend together. A story might begin on a social feed, continue on a publisher site, and later reappear in a completely different format. There is rarely a fixed path from start to finish.
This creates a challenge for publishers. Trust and familiarity still carry weight, but at the same time, the environments where those qualities need to show up have shifted quite quickly.
Rather than replacing one model with another, the industry is stretching what already exists into new spaces, adjusting as audience habits change.
Video, and the continued rise of creator-style formats
Video has become part of the everyday mix. Most people don’t think about choosing it. It fits easily into spare moments, whether that’s during a commute or in between other activities.
What stands out more is the tone. Creator-style video is now an established part of the media landscape. What began as a shift driven by influencers and social platforms has settled into a more permanent model for how audiences engage with content.
The distinction between journalist, presenter, and personality has become less clear, thanks to platforms like the TikTok Creator Network. Audiences recognise individuals. They follow them across platforms and come back for how they see the story, not just the story itself.
That shift influences how content is made. Formats feel less rigid. There is more space for reaction and conversation, and for stories that unfold in the moment rather than being carefully packaged afterwards.
For advertisers, the surrounding environment starts to feel different as well. When people actively choose to spend time with content, they are generally more open to what sits alongside it. Context carries more weight than it used to.
Scale still matters, though it works differently in practice. Reaching a large audience is one part of the equation. Holding attention tends to depend on how closely content reflects specific interests or communities. Generic messaging struggles to stay in view for long.
First-party data and a more realistic view of audiences
As audience behaviour becomes harder to predict, older targeting approaches feel less precise. Broad segments only go so far. They often miss the detail that shapes how people actually engage.
This is where first-party data has taken on a more central role. It builds gradually, based on real behaviour. What people read, what they return to, and how they engage at different times of day. Over time, that creates a more grounded picture.
That picture tends to be layered.
At Reach, this kind of thinking has been formalised through its LIVE framework, which brings together location, interests, values, and engagement to build a more complete view of how audiences behave.
Location provides useful context, particularly when content is tied to specific communities. Interests begin to show intent. Values offer some indication of what matters to people. And engagement patterns help explain when attention forms and when it drops away.
When those elements are considered together, the audience starts to resemble how people actually move through their day, rather than being just an abstraction. This changes how advertising campaigns are shaped. Messaging can sit more naturally within the content around it, feeling less like an interruption and more like part of the environment.
Measurement is shifting alongside that. Impressions alone do not offer much insight. Time spent, interaction, and repeat engagement tend to give a clearer sense of what is working.
Why live experiences are finding their place again
Alongside digital growth, there has been a steady return to physical experiences. That might seem unexpected, but it reflects the fragmentation of attention online.
Recent data reflects this shift. Non-digital formats, including live events, accounted for 61% of consumer entertainment spending in 2024, underlining the continued pull of in-person experiences.
Shared moments can carry great weight. Bringing people together around a common interest creates a different kind of connection, whether that sits in sport, entertainment, or wider culture.
Publishers already play a role in building those connections through content. Extending that into the real world feels like a natural progression, especially when those experiences are rooted in familiar brands and stories, creating space for genuine, real-world activations.
The impact tends to last longer for advertisers. People remember how something felt, and that often stays with them beyond the moment itself. Those experiences also tend to feed back into digital channels, extending their reach in a more organic way.
The strongest examples usually feel consistent with the editorial brands behind them. When that link is clear, the experience carries more credibility and feels like part of an ongoing relationship.
A model that feels more joined up
These shifts are beginning to overlap. Video draws people in and keeps them engaged longer. First-party data helps shape what they see and when they see it. Live experiences add another dimension, making that connection more tangible.
From the outside, it can look complex. From an audience perspective, it feels straightforward. People move between formats without paying much attention to the boundaries between them.
This opens up a different way of approaching media for advertisers. There is more value in being part of something that develops over time than in something that appears briefly and disappears again.
That is where the next phase of growth is likely to come from. Not from chasing every new format, but from understanding how those formats fit into the way people already live and the kind of content they return to.
Charlotte Wells is the strategy director at Reach