Digital Wearout: Pandemic Fatigue Hits Advertising

t’s harder than ever for advertising messaging to have an impact on target audiences – which is ironic when we all use more screen time than we ever have.

The pandemic has given advertisers more opportunities to reach people online.
Americans are watching much more TV – weekday viewing patterns now mimic those of weekends. And, as we all know, screen time overall is way up across the board. McKinsey noted not only a “further migration to digital” but increases in online entertainment specifically: What took Netflix seven years to achieve, they noted, Disney+ achieved in two months.

Even before 2020, advertising researchers had found that the old ways weren’t working. In March 2019, the Journal of Advertising Research published a study finding “that consumers have a higher threshold for advertising repetition (i.e., more than 10 exposures) than suggested by prior research.”