If you’ve been following me for any amount of time, you know I’ve been fairly critical of certain radio and streaming ads. The biggest mistake writers and producers make is they write and produce under the assumption that the listener is hanging on their every word. They’re not, and they haven’t been since TV was invented.

But in a strange twist of fate, TV is now facing a similar challenge. Media habits and attention spans have shifted considerably in the last seventy years or so. More recently, the smartphone and social media have created a new shift.

There’s been a lot of talk lately about Second Screen Viewing. Streaming platforms like Netflix have been criticized for creating shows with scrolling in mind. Characters use expository language, saying what they’re feeling or doing rather than having the images tell the story.

So today we find ourselves with two media no longer playing to their strengths. Radio and streaming ads are leading with words instead of sound, and TV shows are leading with words instead of images.

The data backs this up too. Nielsen Consumer Neuroscience found that 88% of people use another screen as they watch TV, and 61% percent of the time that TV commercials are on, they’re not actually being watched. This is bad news for Netflix subscribers who don’t want superfluous dialogue, but potentially good news for advertisers. Ads may be seen 61% of the time, but they’re heard 100% of the time. We don’t have earlids. You can’t turn away from sound. Sound also reaches the brain much faster than sight.

Regardless of whether people are ignoring the words or the images, distinctive music and sounds are inescapable. They connect with the audience emotionally rather than intellectually. Whether it’s the Home Depot theme or McDonald’s ba-da-bap-bap-bah, audio-conscious brands are the ones best positioned to combat divided attention spans.

I talk a lot here about future-proofing your brand media. In an age of increasingly divided attention and second screen viewing, maybe we need to think of distraction-proofing as well.