November 25, 2025
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For years, marketers have insisted that attention is the new currency. But anyone working inside today’s digital ecosystem knows the truth is a little more complicated: the attention economy isn’t just evolving, it’s fragmenting. And as platforms, consumers, formats, and algorithms continue to shift, it’s becoming clear that not all attention is equal.
What we’re calling “attention” today is often just exposure in disguise. A scroll, a swipe, a blink, the industry has found ways to package each micro-moment as a metric. But exposure isn’t understanding. Viewability isn’t a consideration. Completion isn’t connection. Somewhere along the way, we started measuring what was easy instead of what was meaningful.
Meta’s new Andromeda update is a sharp reminder of this shift. It quietly reorients the system away from micro-targeting and toward something far more interesting: creative quality.
Andromeda doesn’t just ask “Did the right person see the ad?”
It asks, “Was the ad worth seeing?”
That’s a profound pivot for an ecosystem long obsessed with precision media. If the world’s largest advertising platform is repositioning creativity, not placement, as the core performance driver, it’s not just a trend. It’s a structural reset.
The Problem With “Any Attention Will Do”
One of the biggest misunderstandings in modern marketing is treating all attention as interchangeable. It’s not.
Some attention is passive: accidental, ambient, forgettable.
Some attention is functional: you saw it, you acknowledged it, you moved on.
And then there is active attention: the kind that makes a person pause, feel, explore, recall, or respond.
The challenge for marketers isn’t about getting attention anymore. Everyone gets attention; feeds are designed to ensure that. The real challenge is earning the kind that carries meaning forward.
That’s where the current model breaks.
If every campaign looks like the last one, if every creative asset is a resized version of the same idea, if every consumer journey follows the same funnel template, then we’re not competing for attention; we’re recycling it.
Creative Intelligence: The Missing Layer
This is where creative intelligence becomes central to the future of marketing.
Creative intelligence isn’t “making better creatives.”
It’s the ability to use data, context, empathy, and technology to decide what story to tell, how to tell it, when to shift it, and why it matters.
It’s the bridge between automation and emotion.
Between algorithms and human instinct.
Between what the system rewards and what the consumer remembers.
The most forward-thinking marketers are already moving from:
- reach-based optimisation → to meaning-based optimisation
- static creative pipelines → to dynamic, adaptive storytelling
- predictable formats → to immersive, behaviour-led experiences
And this shift isn’t philosophical, it’s practical. The more content the world produces, the scarcer meaningful attention becomes. Brands that show the same thing to everyone, everywhere, will simply be edited out of people’s minds.
What Modern Marketing Must Prioritise
As attention becomes more selective, marketers will need to make three big shifts:
- Design for depth, not just delivery
Great placements matter, but they’re not enough. The ad must earn the right to stay in someone’s mind. - Treat creativity as a system, not a final step.
Creative intelligence must inform the entire journey from insight to idea to iteration, not just the final output. - Optimise for response, not resemblance.
The question is no longer “Did it look good?”
It’s “Did it move someone?”
Because the future of marketing won’t belong to brands that shout the loudest or show up the most.
It will belong to the brands that understand their audience the deepest and use intelligence to shape every interaction with purpose.
A New Definition of Attention
We don’t need more attention.
We need better attention, the kind that is earned through relevance, creativity, and respect.
And as the ecosystem evolves, one thing is becoming clear:
Attention may be the currency, but meaning is the value behind it.
Whoever learns to connect the two will define the next era of modern marketing.
By Prrincey Roy, Co-Founder & CEO, Huella Services
