No one talks about ads anymore: Have they lost their pop-culture charm?

In the past, ads had the power to shape pop culture and become deeply ingrained in our collective consciousness. Who can forget the late 90s, when the Budweiser ‘Whassup’ ad became a cultural phenomenon, with people enthusiastically shouting the catchphrase long before 'going viral' was a thing?

Similarly, in the 80s and 90s, it was common for people to quote memorable lines from ads, like ‘I bet he drinks Carling Black Label’ or ‘Simples’. However, in today's hyper-media landscape, ads often blend into the background perhaps due to their short-term performance-first nature, or perhaps due to the sheer volume of both ATL and BTL campaigns that flood our timelines. Has the era of advertising influencing pop culture come to an end?

"The attention economy has drastically reshaped how we consume content, with endless streams of information constantly competing for our focus. As a result, advertising struggles to break through the noise," says Alejandro Canciobello, regional executive creative director at DDB. 

Canciobello adds that it's not just that there is too much competition, but rather that the focus has shifted toward metrics like performance and efficiency—often at the expense of compelling storytelling.

"The emphasis on short, attention-grabbing formats like five-second ads reflects this shift. While such formats can be effective, they often lack the emotional depth or narrative power needed to create a lasting connection with audiences. Instead of purely focusing on performance formulas, we need to refocus on creating content that resonates emotionally and fosters a deeper connection with consumers,” he says.

And for proof that some of today's ads still have the power to resonate and stir culture, Canciobello points to recent campaigns such as 'Raise Your Arches' by McDonald’s that turned eyebrow wiggles into a TikTok vibe, with a pure fun and unforgettable campaign that hooked into our love for silly trends. Meanwhile, striking a more serious tone, last year 'WoMen’s Football' by Marcel for Orange used deepfakes to swap men for women footballers, flipping the sports script big time and encouraging us to rethink who owns the field. According to Canciobello, it's the campaigns that grab you with bold moves or clever twists that linger. They’re not just ads; they’re culture-shakers. 

Lisa Gumbleton, group head of creative strategy and client service, Think HQ, calls it the "the scroll and roll business", where social-media habits are now driving the quality and quantity of advertising coming out. 

"Mostly, advertising is now churned out to satisfy short-term objectives. There’s no time, no budget and a quick-fix mindset," says Gumbleton. "Brand-building, with the longer term in mind, seems to be the domain of fewer and fewer brands. The short-term fix of clicks and sales, at the expense of creating memorable, distinctive brand platforms that connect to their audience, is the advertising norm."

Adam Ledbury, global creative director, APAC, at Uber, argues that advertising's influence is still there, it just shows up in a slightly different way.

"Ads have changed, how they’re digested has changed, and how they shape popular culture has changed," says Ledbury. "A TikTok influencer wearing a particular brand of sneakers is still an ad shaping culture, as is a brand film that launches the music of a new artist."

Similarly, Michael Lee, group CSO at VCCP, says that if you replace the word 'ads' with 'brands' then absolutely, brands are still shaping pop culture. 

"The brands that are succeeding in this hyper-fragmented media landscape are using all the assets in hand, not just relying on paid advertising," says Lee. "They're doing incredible innovation in packaging and service design, creating imaginative partnerships with other brands and influencers and recognising how important it is for it all to come from one coherent brand thought."

However, the fact remains that the majority of ads go unnoticed and the data supports this. According to Hootsuite, 85% of ads fail to reach the 'attention threshold' needed to make an enduring impact from a brand-building perspective with the average Facebook ad engagement rate at just 0.18%.

Anton Reyniers, head of strategy at We Are Social Singapore, notes that much of the work in the industry often goes unnoticed, resembles traditional advertising, and is easily ignored. However, he attributes this phenomenon to recent shifts in the industry.

"We’ve seen an exodus from the industry in really strong senior talent across all disciplines and so there are fewer adults in the room being able to shape culture-defining work," says Reyniers. "With mergers and the loss of strong agency legacies, we’ve lost a lot of creative philosophies embedded into how great work is arrived at."

And with procurement having a stronger seat at the table, Reyniers adds that pitches are being won based on a race to the bottom for fees, instead of appreciating that the strongest ideas will actually deliver the strongest returns.

"I’m not sure many strategists who are entering the industry are taught how to go onto the streets and speak to people or run a focus group. Instead everyone is firing up their favourite AI tool," says Reyniers. "Get out of the office and understand human motivations and you’ll have a far better chance in getting to a place that is actually culturally relevant."

The obsession with performance

In recent years, the trend of prioritising performance over creativity has significantly altered the focus. Although performance metrics offer a quantifiable way to evaluate success, they often result in a formulaic approach that emphasises immediate outcomes over long-term brand development. Some argue that this continues to reduce the effectiveness and appeal of ads, as creativity—the key to engaging audiences and leaving a lasting impact—is relegated to a secondary role.

"The impact has been huge," says Mateusz Mroszczak, chief creative officer of VML Singapore. "The focus on performance has made advertising to want to be more efficient, but it has also led to a flood of formulaic, forgettable work. The obsession with short-term metrics often comes at the expense of bold, culture-shaping creativity."

But in a way, this shift has also made the contrast between truly great work and everything else even more obvious. "When most ads are optimised to blend in, the rare ones that take risks, tell powerful stories, or break conventions stand out even more," adds Mroszczak. "Creativity hasn’t lost its power it’s just rarer, which makes it even more valuable."

Thasorn Boonyanate, CCO at BBDO Bangkok, believes that we've optimised the soul out of advertising.

"Yes, performance marketing gets clicks. Yes, it's efficient. But let's be honest, most of it is boring, transactional, and forgettable," says Boonyante. "It's all about short-term wins: 'Buy now', 'Limited offer', 'Click here'. It works in the moment but builds nothing lasting. The best brands know that performance and creativity aren't at opposite ends—they work together. Because an ad that converts is good. But an ad that people remember? That’s priceless."

 

Nevertheless, Krystle Morais, creative director at VaynerMedia APAC, argues that advertising is about selling, so performance is crucial, as it shows that creativity is working. "Without creativity, how do you get your audience to stop scrolling and actually care about your brand? And without performance, how does it really help your brand? The two go together; it’s not one or the other—and it’s our business to care about both,” she says.

And Ogilvy Network ANZ chief strategy officer Fran Clayton concurs, "Creativity is performance. We need to do away with this either-or conversation and remind ourselves and our clients that if we want performance, creativity is the most powerful way to generate that, both in the short term and in the future. Our agency calls it’ ‘return on creativity.

In any case, there's increasingly a realisation that a re-balancing is needed because the ratio of performance to brand advertising has in many cases gone too much towards the former, and that's seen as one of the key causes for its declining effectiveness.

"The smart advertisers stuck to the 60:40 brand AND performance approach, and have benefited in commercial terms from this approach," says VCCP’s Lee. "We're seeing more and more evidence of the wisdom of this approach so I'm hopeful we will see an improvement in effectiveness and appeal." 

How to make ads matter again?

What are some of the ways advertising can take back its cultural relevance and create ads that people want to watch and leave a lasting impression?

"Don’t aim to make ads people want to watch, aim to make ideas people want to share," says Clayton. "It's simple but it's not easy. And that's why we use tools when looking at work, when we're developing creative, when we're setting creative ambition with our clients. It keeps us honest and focused on driving ‘return on creativity’ and making sure that what we're putting out into the world does matter and creates cultural relevance and growth for our clients."

Clayton adds that brands that are obsessed with their audience, communities and cultural currents are the ones making the biggest impact. 

"The best agencies and brands are asking is the idea worth talking about?," says Clayton. "Is it coming from the point of view of the audience—what they're interested in, what they are entertained by, what they're passionate about? Specsavers do it brilliantly, with the Misheard Version and more recently pranking passengers arriving at Aussie airports. The most powerful and impactful ideas in the new media environment are the ones that inspire a conversation, give people something to play with and be a part of."

Clayton also cites the work that Heinz is doing, a 150-year-old brand that’s behaving like a start-up, experimenting and playing with cultural moments like Seemingly Ranch and Ketchup Fraud. She's also a fan of Tinder’s ‘It Starts with a Swipe’ campaign which flips their hookup app reputation into a new conversation about possibilities.

Boonyanate at BBDO Bangkok says that brands need to stop thinking like marketers and start acting like creators—telling stories, sparking conversations, and making cultural moments. He says: "If an ad feels like an ad, people will skip it. But if it feels like something worth their time? They'll share it, talk about it, and remember it. And that's what truly matters."

There can be no denying the impact the attention economy in the reason why people don't tend to talk about ads as much anymore. With the rise of short-form videos, a global pandemic, and Gen AI, even reading a book or getting through a movie has become a task too difficult for younger generations to get through, says Marielle Nones, associate creative director, Dentsu Creative Singapore.

"We cut 15-second spots to six seconds because we worry that they will drop off, so why not just make something that they will want to see?" says Nones. "Instead of adapting to their attention span, we should adapt towards creating what they will actually want to see. Personally, I'd rather buy something that made me feel something, over an ad that bombarded me with information in the first five seconds." 

Ultimately, say Morais, ads matter when they are relevant to people: "[It’s relevant] when something in there touches them and makes them feel seen. It has always been that way. How we do it may have changed dramatically, but this hasn’t. Seeing people, and understanding why they do what they do will always be key to great advertising. As long as we keep people in mind, our ads will matter."