There was a time when the biggest challenge for advertisers was finding a way into people’s lives. Today, it feels like the challenge is finding a way out.
Every time you unlock your phone, something is competing for your attention. A brand is dancing to a trending audio. Another is trying to sound like your best friend on social media. A third has discovered a meme template approximately three weeks too late. Somewhere, a marketing team is convinced that putting “POV” in front of a sentence qualifies as strategy.
Consumers, meanwhile, have become experts at a skill they never consciously learned: ignoring things. Scroll. Skip. Mute. Move on.
In a world overflowing with content, attention has become advertising’s favourite obsession. But according to Amitesh Rao, Chief Executive Officer – Leo South Asia and Vice President, The Advertising Club, the industry’s fixation on capturing attention may be distracting it from a far more important objective.
Earning it.
In a conversation with Marketing Mind, Rao reflected on the enduring principles of brand building, the growing importance of authenticity and why brands should stop treating attention as something to be seized and start treating it as something that must be deserved.
Clarity Is Becoming Advertising’s Most Valuable Currency
While marketing conversations today are dominated by algorithms, creators, AI and performance metrics, Rao believes that the foundations of successful branding have remained remarkably unchanged.
“The single most important thing for brands today is clarity and authenticity,” he said.
For Rao, the industry’s pursuit of novelty should not come at the expense of the fundamentals that have always driven meaningful consumer relationships.
“A lot of the old tenets of brand building continue to hold true. The ability to have a strong proposition, storytelling and creative thinking are all important,” he explained.
In an era where consumers are constantly bombarded with messages, Rao believes clarity has become a competitive advantage in itself. “Brands that are authentic and that have clarity are the brands that are winning,” he said. His point is particularly relevant at a time when brands often feel pressured to react to every cultural moment, jump onto every trend and participate in every conversation happening online. While these tactics may generate temporary visibility, they rarely create lasting brand value.
Instead, Rao argued that consumers continue to gravitate towards brands that know exactly who they are and communicate that consistently.
Authenticity, in this context, is not about sounding casual on social media or adopting the language of internet culture. It is about having a clear point of view and delivering on promises consistently over time.
The Industry Has Become Obsessed With Capturing Attention
If there is one phrase Rao would like advertisers to rethink, it is perhaps the industry’s favourite buzzword: attention capture.
“What is your attention strategy? What attention are you facing? These are questions we hear all the time,” he noted. Yet Rao believes the framing itself is flawed.
“I think we should not be clamouring for or capturing attention. We should be earning it as creative people, as advertising people and as brands,” he said.
For him, this distinction is far more than semantics.
“The success mantra is simple: Am I doing something to earn your attention? Not, am I doing something to capture your attention?” And according to Rao, that single change in perspective can transform how brands approach communication.
“If you change that one word, everything changes.” The observation arrives at a moment when attention has effectively become the most valuable resource in marketing. Platforms are designed around it. Metrics are built around it. Entire business models depend on it.
Yet consumers have become increasingly resistant to anything that feels intrusive, forced or engineered solely to stop them mid-scroll. Rao’s argument is that brands often mistake interruption for engagement.
Capturing attention may be easy. A shocking visual, a controversial statement or an exaggerated claim can achieve that. Earning attention, however, requires something much harder: relevance, trust and value. It requires giving consumers a genuine reason to stop, listen and care. And that process rarely happens overnight.
Great Brands Are Built Over Time, Not Trends
Perhaps Rao’s strongest message is also his simplest. Advertising may move at internet speed, but brands are still built at human speed. “Don’t forget that brands are built over time,” he said.
While the marketing industry often celebrates immediacy, Rao believed enduring brand equity is created through consistency rather than constant reinvention.
“Consumers learn to relate to brands and accept them into their lives, as much as into their shelves and into their pockets, over a period of time.” That relationship, he suggested, resembles trust far more than it resembles attention. Trust cannot be manufactured through a viral campaign. It cannot be generated through a trend cycle. And it certainly cannot be sustained by constantly chasing the next cultural moment.
Instead, it is earned gradually through repeated positive experiences and a clear, authentic identity. This is why Rao cautioned brands against becoming overly consumed by the present.
“Stay enduring,” he advised. “And don’t be completely swayed by just living in the moment.”
It is a deceptively simple piece of advice. After all, the temptation to live in the moment has never been greater. Trends emerge daily. Platforms reward immediacy. Consumers move quickly. Marketers are constantly under pressure to remain relevant.
Yet amid all the noise, Rao’s perspective served as a reminder that the strongest brands have rarely been those that shouted the loudest. They have been the ones that consistently gave people a reason to listen. Because while attention can be bought, borrowed or briefly borrowed from an algorithm, relevance must be earned. And according to Rao, that is a lesson the advertising industry would do well to remember.
