The Crisis of Engagement: why attention is no longer enough and what brands can do to be relevant
In recent years, communication (not only that of brands, but systemic communication as a whole) seems to have progressively flattened into a single imperative: to entertain.
It is no longer simply about capturing attention, but about holding it for as long as possible through continuous, often superficial stimulation that reduces complexity to impulse. In this scenario, content becomes increasingly similar: accelerated, simplified, emotionally polarized. The user is no longer invited to interpret, but to react. They scroll, consume, forget.
This dynamic is never neutral. It is the result of a media ecosystem that rewards what is immediately accessible, often penalizing what instead requires time, attention, silence. Even seemingly technical choices, such as incentivizing the use of music in Instagram posts or favoring short, rhythmic formats, become evidence of this imperative, true cultural devices that shape the way we perceive and produce meaning. The risk, therefore, is clear: a progressive erosion of communicative depth.
Courtesy of Martin Naumann (@mnaumanndesign)
From communication to entertainment: a cultural (and anthropological) shift
What we are witnessing is not just a change in formats, but a more radical transformation: the conversion of communication into permanent entertainment. An entertainment that, increasingly, takes on a passive form. It does not activate critical thinking, it does not generate critical distance, it does not build visions. On the contrary, it anesthetizes.
In this drift, the concept of “spectacle” theorized by Guy Debord in The Society of the Spectacle appears more relevant than ever: a reality in which representation tends to replace direct experience, and in which everything is progressively reduced to a spectacular form.
Even complex, dramatic, even tragic themes are drawn into this flow. The frantic race toward spectacularization and visibility invades every domain, reaching into territories that, until recently, were considered symbolically untouchable.
This is not merely an ethical issue, but rather a cultural threshold that affects the very quality of thought. When everything becomes content, nothing retains its specific weight.
The limits of the “Content Economy”
Digital platforms are not neutral. They shape behaviors, define priorities, influence languages. For brands, passively adhering to this paradigm represents a strategic as well as a cultural risk. It often means unconsciously adapting to the mainstream logics of algorithms and Big Tech, sacrificing much in terms of complexity, depth, relevance, and identity.
This scenario fits squarely within the so-called Content Economy, in which content production becomes continuous, industrialized, and performance-oriented, transforming content itself into a commodity rather than a vehicle of meaning.
The pursuit of engagement for its own sake produces communication that is indistinct, interchangeable, easily replaceable. In an environment that grows more saturated every day, being visible no longer means being relevant. Visibility without strong and authentic meaning is merely a form of noise. And noise, in the long term, does not generate value.
Art and Culture as a counter-device
This is where an alternative perspective comes into play. Art and culture, when applied to corporate communication, are not simply aesthetic tools or original branding operations. They can represent a true counter-device to the dominant paradigm.
By its nature, art does not entertain passively. It interrupts, disorients, demands mental and emotional participation. It introduces ambiguity, opens up interpretations, slows down the time of consumption. Culture builds social contexts, layers meanings, activates thought and memory.
When applied to corporate communication, these dimensions allow brands to move beyond the logic of immediate reaction and enter that of deep relationship. Integrating artistic logics into communication therefore means shifting the focus: from performance to depth, from visibility to meaning, from instant reaction to experience that endures.
Overcoming the dogma of entertainment does not mean renouncing audience attention. It means redefining its quality.
Courtesy of Martin Naumann (@mnaumanndesign)
Possible strategies: what brands can concretely do
Overcoming the dogma of entertainment does not mean abandoning communicative effectiveness, but rethinking it at a deeper level. It means shifting the focus from a purely performative logic, made of metrics, reach, and immediacy, toward a more solid and lasting construction of meaning, relationships, and cultural positioning. Within this perspective, several operational trajectories can help brands move beyond the standardization of contemporary language and redefine their role in the public sphere.
Restoring value to time and slowness Content that does not exhaust itself in the scroll, but invites lingering, re-reading, contemplation.
Integrating artistic practices into communication processes Collaborations with artists, creative residencies, visual and narrative research projects that are not merely decorative, but generative.
Building layered narratives Moving beyond the logic of a single, immediate message to develop complex storytelling capable of evolving over time.
Reclaiming the analog dimension and offline experience Stepping outside digital platforms to reactivate more direct and situated forms of relationship: events, installations, physical publications, interventions in public space. The analog not as nostalgia, but as a strategic lever to generate memorable, non-replicable experiences less subject to algorithmic dynamics.
Reactivating the audience’s critical thinking Not treating the audience as passive consumers, but as active interlocutors, capable of interpreting, choosing, positioning themselves.
Toward a communication that leaves a trace
In an ecosystem dominated by noise, standing out does not mean making more noise. It means changing frequency. Art and culture offer brands the possibility to move beyond a commercial competition based solely on attention and to enter a deeper dimension: that of meaning, memory, and cultural impact.
Because in the long term, what merely entertains fades, while what generates authentic thought endures.
Courtesy of Martin Naumann (@mnaumanndesign)
Article by Enrico Dedin
Media artist active since 2013, with over 80 exhibitions worldwide. His works are part of the catalogue of Heure Exquise!, distributor of the audiovisual collections of the Musée du Louvre and the Musée d’Orsay. He has been selected for major events and exhibitions, including the 16th Videoart Yearbook curated by art critic Renato Barilli, the Collettiva Giovani Artisti of the Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, and The Wrong Biennale, receiving numerous awards and recognitions over the years. His artistic research has also been included in the volume “L’arte del XXI secolo. Temi, linguaggi, artisti” by Viviana Vannucci, professor and international curator. Alongside his artistic practice, he works as an Art Director in the field of multimedia communication. Operating at the intersection of art and communication, he coined the term “Artivator” to define a new role of the artist: a cultural activator for brands, territories, and entities outside the art system. He is also the author of the literary manifesto of Metaluddism, published in the aperiodical Il Foglio Clandestino.
