Earning attention through authenticity, clarity and human storytelling.
The idea of the attention economy isn’t new, but in 2025 it feels more urgent than ever. Content has become currency – traded across screens, feeds, and platforms at astonishing speed. Yet in this crowded marketplace, attention is both the most valuable and the most wasted resource in business. For communicators, marketers and leaders, the challenge isn’t just to be seen; it’s to hold focus long enough to mean something.
My favourite podcast – The Rest Is Entertainment, dropped a favourite phrase – “the attention economy” into an episode last week and it reminded me just how essential this concept is to understand right now.
In 2025 content is currency. Simple as that. So, if you’re going to be competitive in this new landscape you need to be printing some currency of your own and creating that content. Fortunately, this isn’t the Weimar Republic and creating content isn’t as inflationary as printing money. But in a world flooded with content and now increasingly AI slop too, this extra competition makes it ever harder to stand out. This makes your attention the most valuable and most misused resource in business.
A Wealth of Information, a Poverty of Attention
It’s tempting to think this is all something shiny and new. A function of the YouTube generation’s addiction to doom-scrolling. It isn’t though. In fact, it predates even me. It was economist Herbert Simon who saw this coming as far back as 1971, “In an information-rich world, the wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.” His news-ticker feed must have been particularly busy that day…
But looking through the prism of today, he has a point. The overabundance of information sources – emails, feeds, alerts, social media platforms, podcasts, videos, even AI-generated summaries – have created a kind of cognitive debt. Every time we “pay attention to one thing,” we’re choosing not to pay attention to something else.
Attention therefore is a scarce resource. It’s finite, valuable and increasingly sold to the highest bidder. This is the economic system of modern media: advertisers and algorithms competing for slivers of cognition. The business model of social media platforms is built not on content, but on algorithmically capturing and reselling the attention that people spend on it.
As users, we’ve become both consumer and product. As content creators we’re now competing in an attention marketplace where time spent is the only transaction that matters.
Understanding the Economy of Attention
In practical terms, the attention economy refers to how businesses, creators and technologies fight for the limited cognitive resources of audiences.
We live amid an overabundance of information but a shortage of focus. Algorithms optimise for what grabs attention, not necessarily what deserves our time. In doing so, they reshape behaviour, rewarding outrage and reducing subtlety.
It’s worth remembering that every minute of content consumes not just time but mental energy. Human brains evolved for scarcity of information, not the constant stream of stimuli we now face. Neuroscience tells us our cognitive bandwidth, the amount of attention we can allocate, is actually pretty tiny. Yet every brand, influencer and AI-powered platform is queueing up to take their share from us.
That’s why I think of it as a kind of cognitive economics. If attention is the new currency, then the question for every communicator is simple: why should someone spend theirs on you?
The Struggle for Attention in Corporate Video
Corporate video lives right in the middle of this fight for relevance. No other medium demands so much and offers so much back when it’s done right.
When we produce films at Mahne Creative Media, we’re not just creating visuals. We’re designing an experience for the viewer’s brain. We know that we’re competing not only with rival firms, but with Netflix, TikTok, the news, downtime, work time, your inbox pinging halfway through the CEO’s best soundbite.
In the economics of attention, video can be both the problem and the solution. Done badly, it contributes to the noise. Done well, it earns attention through authenticity, clarity and emotional connection.
That’s why we often talk about “lean-in moments”in videos. Those seconds that make a viewer focus and invest their limited cognitive resources. They’re not created by flashy editing or motion graphics. They come from honesty, empathy and a honed narrative craft. In the attention economy, sincerity cuts through because it’s so rare these days.
The Algorithm Doesn’t Care, But the Audience Does
The algorithms that underpin social networks don’t get nuance. They reward engagement, without understanding. They don’t care if someone is watching because they’re fascinated or because they’re furious, as long as they’re watching.
For corporate storytelling, that presents a dilemma. Chasing clicks or views can sometimes win a battle, but it definitely loses the war. Audience attention is not just a metric; it’s a measure of trust. Trust is what we’re really trying to build here.
So, rather than trying to out-shout the internet, we should be thinking like editors: how to allocate attention efficiently among competing demands. Every frame, every sentence, every soundbite has to earn its place in the piece. The most powerful videos are the ones that consume viewer attention responsibly. That is, they respect your time.
The Attention Scarcity Test
If you want to test the strength of a video or even an idea for a video, ask yourself this “If my audience had only 15 seconds of attention left today, would they spend it on this?”
That’s the bar, because attention scarcity is a real thing. Time pressure, digital overload and a million content alternatives mean that your message only lands if it’s clear, human, visually purposeful and right for the audience.
That’s why real, human, authentic storytelling is the antidote to the modern attention crisis. It doesn’t fight the algorithm, just bypasses it. It connects not by tricking you, but by respecting you.
At Mahne Creative Media, our job is to help clients capture attention without wasting it. We don’t make noise; we make meaning.
Designing for an Information-Rich World
Herbert Simon (still remember him?) also suggested that in a world of abundance, organisations must “design for the scarcity.” That’s good advice for modern marketing, particularly in video. In an era where artificial intelligence, automation and social media have made content creation almost effortless, the differentiator isn’t how much content you make – it’s how much it matters.
Creating video for an information-rich world means thinking like a curator, not a channel. It means being strategic about the allocation of attention, not just the production of content. Because the real measure of success isn’t how much you say, but how much your audience remembers.
Cost versus Value
In the end, attention is the new currency. Its cost is traded in every click, view and watch time statistic. But its value lies in what happens after. The relationship between attention and trust is what gives content its economic value. You can buy reach, but you can’t buy credibility or action.
The challenge, also the opportunity, for every business is to understand attention not as a number, but as a measure of respect. When people give you their time, they’re lending you a piece of their mind. Spend it well.
Friends, Romans, Countrymen, Lend me your screens! We’ll make sure it’s worth it.
Christian Mahne is the founder of Mahne Creative Media, a video production company specialising in the financial services sector. With a background in journalism, a deep understanding of regulated environments and a passion for intelligent storytelling, Christian has worked with banks, fintechs, wealth managers and insurers to deliver creative content that builds trust and drives results.
