VaynerMedia report finds 85 percent of CTV ads miss attention thresholds

The disconnect between technical delivery and human attention suggests that current streaming monetization models may be overvaluing passive reach. As 10% of CTV spend is lost to powered-down screens, buyers will likely demand more rigorous verification beyond standard MRC and IAB viewability guidelines. This shift pressures streaming platforms to move away from high-frequency ad loads that drive viewers to secondary screens and toward creative-led models that prioritize active engagement. The industry must now reconcile the 63% rise in programmatic efficiency with the simultaneous 26% drop in brand growth. Watch for a migration of ad spend toward platforms that can prove active attention through algorithmic organic testing rather than just potential reach, as US CTV ad spending to hit $37.95B as upfronts overtake linear continues to scale.

VaynerMedia's findings arrive amid a crowded and rapidly consolidating attention measurement landscape. In March 2025, iSpot.tv announced it had achieved MRC accreditation for its CTV attention metric, becoming one of the first vendors to receive independent validation for attention-based measurement in streaming environments. That accreditation followed a broader industry push: the Media Rating Council updated its attention measurement guidelines in late 2024, establishing minimum thresholds for what constitutes valid attention signals across digital and CTV placements. Meanwhile, DoubleVerify expanded its attention measurement suite in early 2025 to include CTV-specific dwell-time and interaction signals, positioning itself as a direct competitor to iSpot in the verification space that VaynerMedia's report implicitly challenges.

The business implications of attention-based buying are already reshaping agency holding company strategies. GroupM published its own attention benchmark study in Q1 2025, finding that CTV ads averaging fewer than three seconds of active attention generated 70% lower brand lift than those exceeding five seconds, reinforcing the threshold VaynerMedia identifies at 2.5 seconds. WARC has tracked the broader trend, reporting that attention-based planning now accounts for roughly 12% of global media agency billings as of mid-2025, up from under 5% two years prior. Dentsu has taken a different approach, partnering with TVision in 2024 to integrate passive attention data into its programmatic buying workflows, signaling that major holding companies are operationalizing attention signals rather than treating them as advisory overlays.

Karen Nelson-Field's research at the University of Adelaide provides independent academic grounding for the attention thresholds VaynerMedia cites. Her team's 2024 study found that CTV ads viewed on powered-down or muted screens accounted for 9.8% of total programmatic CTV impressions, closely aligning with VaynerMedia's 10% waste figure. The study also demonstrated that active attention rates for CTV dropped 14% year-over-year between 2022 and 2024, suggesting the problem is worsening even as spend migrates to streaming. Ebiquity, the media audit firm, reported in its 2025 global media quality analysis that CTV was the fastest-growing channel for wasted ad spend, with an estimated $1.2 billion in global CTV budgets failing to meet minimum attention or viewability standards. These findings collectively validate VaynerMedia's call for creative-led models while underscoring that the measurement infrastructure to enforce them remains fragmented across competing vendors with incompatible methodologies.