Poor Ad Recall Threatens Brand Discovery, Visibility in AI Era

Consumers quickly forget advertising, making it harder for brands to win both human attention and AI-powered discovery, according to a report released Monday by Adobe.

Based on a survey of some 1,000 U.S. consumers, Adobe found that only 17% of the respondents were confident they could recall the names of the last three ads they saw after just 24 hours.

"In an era where AI tools increasingly mediate discovery, brands face a dual threat: being forgotten by consumers and being invisible to the AI systems consumers rely on to find them again," the report noted.

Brand recall is important because it often determines who gets a click or call, explained Greg Sterling, co-founder of Near Media, a market research firm in San Francisco.

"Because users tend to click on familiar brands, and Google rewards behavioral signals, brands rank higher in search and get more clicks," he told the E-Commerce Times.

"On an unconscious level," he continued, "people often trust — and buy — brands more than unfamiliar products. All things being equal, brand awareness is a tiebreaker. Price, of course, is a significant variable."

"If people can't remember you, you don't make the shortlist," added Alok R. Saboo, a professor of marketing at the J. Mack Robinson College of Business at Georgia State University.

"Awareness is the first step in the buying journey, and most purchase decisions happen from memory, not off a shelf," he told the E-Commerce Times. "A brand nobody can name is a brand that competes on price alone, and that's a race to the bottom."

Brand Amnesia

Adobe found that ads contribute to "brand amnesia" by being irrelevant (73%), clickbait or misleading (56%), untrustworthy (55%), intrusive (47%), boring (38%), bloated with information (35%), or confusing (26%).

"Great advertising doesn't just tell people something. It makes them feel something," observed Mark N. Vena, president and principal analyst of SmartTech Research, a technology advisory firm in Las Vegas.

"Great storytelling, unique visuals, humor, surprise, and consistency across campaigns all help make it more likely someone will remember the brand later," he told the E-Commerce Times. "Great ads sell an idea before they sell a product."

Matthew A. Gilbert, a marketing lecturer at Coastal Carolina University, explained that brands that play it safe and don't push creative boundaries generally produce forgettable ads.

"They chase trends, rehash old concepts, or copy competitors without explaining why a consumer should choose their brand," he told the E-Commerce Times. "If an ad is forgettable, no amount of repetition will improve its ability to generate brand recall."

"Brands need to go out of their way to set themselves apart from the competition — both in the products they offer and their promotion of them," he added.

"Consumers have almost no attention span, so if you don't catch their attention in the first three to five seconds, they will move on," he said. "It's gotten to the point where the hook that previously engaged a consumer to watch the rest of your ad has actually become the ad itself."

Advertising 101

Adobe also reported that shoppers need to encounter a message at least four times within a 24-hour window for it to stick. That finding reinforces the case for high-frequency, cross-channel brand presence, the report asserted.

"That's advertising 101," observed Rob Enderle, president and principal analyst of the Enderle Group, an advisory services firm in Bend, Ore.

"You have to repeat the ad not only multiple times to a shopper but run the campaign long enough so the potential buyer considers buying the object when they need it," he told the E-Commerce Times. "If you aren't advertising when the need occurs, you are far less likely to close the sale."

Samantha Sands, a director at Bolt PR, a public relations and digital marketing agency in Dallas, agreed with the necessity for frequency, but disagreed with how most brands execute it.

"If a shopper sees the exact same retargeted banner ad four times in a day, that doesn't build recall, but can build banner blindness and brand annoyance," she told the E-Commerce Times.

"To make that 24-hour window work, you need multi-touchpoint storytelling," she said.

Sands explained that might mean a thought-leadership PR article in the morning, a short-form video on their lunch break, and a highly targeted email in the evening. "That builds an omnipresent memory without feeling like the brand is spamming them," she noted.

Need for Creative Effectiveness

Richard Ashbaugh, CEO of Mabbly, a digital marketing and branding agency in Chicago, also agreed with the frequency principle but questioned locking in an exact number.

"Frequency matters, but context and creative quality matter even more," he told the E-Commerce Times. "A remarkable message seen twice can outperform a mediocre one seen 10 times."

"Repetition builds memory only if each exposure reinforces the same recognizable idea," he added.

Ultimately, this is a question of creative effectiveness, which explains why immersive, longer-form storytelling formats like video consistently rank as the most memorable, maintained Jo Callahan, VP for strategy and experience at Bazaarvoice, a global provider of user-generated content platforms for brands and retailers.

"When a consumer observes the tangible role a brand plays in the lives of real peers, that authentic storytelling significantly drives both long-term memorability and market salience," she told the E-Commerce Times.

"Consistently amplifying this message across touchpoints builds lasting retention," she continued. "It is this aggregate exposure — encountering a brand via traditional ads, reviews, social UGC — that truly drives recall."

Turning Forgotten Into Found

Adobe's report advised that to win in 2026, brands need to unify the human and machine discovery journey. "This requires moving beyond siloed marketing strategies toward a unified content supply chain that satisfies both the human desire for entertaining, relevant creative and the technical requirements for generative engine optimization," it noted.

"Turning 'forgotten' into 'found' with intelligent automation ensures that, by linking high-impact production and LLM search visibility, organizations can keep their products discoverable through authoritative AI search summaries and personalized re-engagement triggers, even when a brand name fails to stick," it added.

Ariane Lovell, co-founder and public relations director of Trifecta Media Group, a global marketing and communications agency, argued that brand recall is becoming one of the clearest indicators of whether marketing is actually working.

"Consumers are seeing more content than ever before, so the goal isn't simply to reach people, it's to leave a lasting impression," she told the E-Commerce Times. "The brands that win will be the ones people remember without needing to be reminded."

"The most memorable brands don't rely solely on advertising," she added. "When consumers repeatedly encounter a brand through news stories, expert commentary, partnerships and organic conversations, that credibility reinforces recall in a way paid media alone often can't."