The news: Consumers’ attention in their living rooms is divided as they multitask and often ignore ads completely, creating a challenging environment for advertisers.

• 88% of US adults are doing other things while watching TV and not giving it their full attention, including 68% who are using second screens for social media, shopping, searching, messaging, or gaming, per Attest’s “2026 US Media Consumption Report.”
• 68% of Gen Zers always or usually skip ads on connected TV (CTV) streaming apps.
• When encountering unskippable ads, 44% watch the ads as intended, 34% redirect their attention, 17% mute content, and 3% stop watching.

What’s causing users to tune out? Forty-five percent cite too many ads, followed by ads being repetitive, long, annoying, boring, irrelevant, and AI-generated. Gen Zers are more annoyed by AI ads than other respondents, as 35% will tune them out compared with just 17% to 18% of older generations.

What it means: Reach doesn’t guarantee attention, and marketers can’t assume that a delivered TV impression is the same as an engaged viewer.

Ad load can also undermine effectiveness, adding a hurdle for brands that are trying to boost visibility and conversions by putting more content in front of consumers. The combination of too many ads and repetitive ads as top reasons for consumer disengagement means spray-and-pray tactics can hurt engagement.

Many consumers use more than one streaming platform and find it annoying when they see the same ad multiple times across services, per Omnicom. When that repetition occurs, ad fatigue can decrease purchase intent and erode favorability.

Why it matters: Advertisers are under pressure to communicate value quickly, offer distinctive creative, avoid ad repetition, and design campaigns for viewers who may be simultaneously scrolling, shopping, or messaging,

Fragmented user attention also creates a measurement problem: Metrics on reach, frequency, and completion can indicate an ad appeared but don't show whether someone actually paid attention to it.

This situation presents a strong case for attention- and outcomes-based measurement, while adding questions around which signals can reliably predict business results and campaign success.

Recommendations for advertisers: Build campaign value by investing in content metadata, audience targeting, and a variety of creative.

• Press vendors for show-level data to ensure ads are being placed in relevant moments.
• Gather both demographic and contextual audience data to ensure accurate targeting.
• Avoid repurposing the same imagery and wording across all platforms, as multi-service users may be inclined to tune out content they’ve already seen.
• A/B test on social before committing larger budgets to CTV or streaming.

Marketers can additionally focus on interactive creative to increase engagement, entertainment-first content strategies like sequential storytelling to encourage time spent, and IP-linked content that draws on favorability.