Amid the rising trend of short-form videos on TikTok and Instagram Reels, it is commonly assumed that marketers need to favour fast-paced messaging to quickly grab people’s attention. However, not all advertising experts share this view.

Bonfire Creative Director Luke Williams rejected the idea that consumers were only capable of engaging with content for a few seconds.

He pointed to the popularity of cinema and Test cricket as an indication that people could remain engaged for longer periods.

According to Mr Williams, brands needed to give audiences something interesting, entertaining or emotionally engaging, rather than simply passing on information.

He said advertisers should focus on why their content failed to hold people’s attention rather than blaming audiences’ short attention spans.

Rare Planning Director Ella-Jane Williams said the rise of second screen viewing – where, for example, audiences watched television while scrolling on their phones – illustrated how people were dividing their attention across activities.

She said some brands invested in longer-form storytelling to distinguish themselves from the stream of short-form online content.

“When long-form content and storytelling are done right, it’s an investment in brand,” she said.

That investment can be difficult to justify when businesses feel they need to deliver results as soon as possible. Ms Williams said she had observed marketers increasingly prioritising short-term performance in recent years rather than focusing on long-term brand building.

“I think we have found ourselves in a place where we are constantly going after the quick wins,” she said.

Both Mr Williams and Ms Williams said capturing attention was not enough, and a successful advertisement needed to make an emotional connection with its audience.

“Eyeballs don’t equal attention,” Ms Williams said.

“Just because the ad was seen doesn’t mean it was memorable.”

In an industry increasingly focused on speed and measurable results, the challenge for advertisers may not be to make every message shorter, but to give audiences a reason to stay.

Author bio: Pascaline Bugeme is a Journalism and Broadcast Media student at Edith Cowan University. She has a keen interest in news reporting, broadcast journalism and human-interest stories.