Brand Breakfast: If you only count data, you lose the battle for attention

A full house at the HWZ, tense industry, coffee in hand, a check on the market. The Media Focus Brand Breakfast begins with figures, charts and forecasts. It's all about advertising pressure, platforms, social ads, mobile usage, benchmarks and budget shifts. In other words, everything that the communications industry loves, needs and misses today in ever finer resolution.

But beneath the surface of this morning was a bigger story. It is about an advertising market that is increasingly shifting towards mobile, platforms and data-driven optimization. New panel data shows how deeply anchored the smartphone is in the everyday lives of the Swiss population, how dominantly YouTube is now used and how strongly advertising is pushing its way into the most subtle routines of media consumption. Everything competes with everything else: advertising with content, journalism with platform logic, brands with memes. And in the middle of it all, the smartphone as a permanent portal into a world that never stands still.

This is precisely why this event took on its real poignancy. Media Focus not only showed new data, but also how brutal the hyper-competition for attention has become. And this is precisely where the most important counterpoint of the morning came in. Anyone who only sees attention as a number, target value or technical discipline is misjudging people. Prof. Dr. Philipp Bachmann reminded the industry that in this intensified competition, it is not just data, but above all ideas that make the difference.

The market is under pressure - and remains on the move

To kick things off, Ueli Weber from Media Focus takes a broad view of the market. The advertising year 2025 in Switzerland will end at around six billion Swiss francs, slightly below the previous year. Traditional media will generate around 3.9 billion, while the digital sector will generate around 2.1 billion. The first half of the year was weaker before the situation stabilized in the third and fourth quarters. The fact that the digital figures were distorted in the first half of the year is also due to global Google Core updates, which necessitated adjustments to the recording process.

The mix is interesting: Out of Home remains on course for growth, cinema is up slightly, display is developing positively and YouTube is holding steady. Print continues to lose ground, albeit somewhat less dramatically than in previous phases. In a DACH comparison, Switzerland remains far ahead in terms of gross advertising pressure per capita. So it is not the case that too little advertising is being done in this country. But the distribution battle is getting tougher. And it is becoming more fragmented.

This is the backdrop against which the rest of the morning really comes into focus. Because figures alone describe the market. But they do not explain how attention is really generated today.

Philipp Bachmann: People are not just targets, they are artists of life

The intellectual highlight of the morning will be delivered by Prof. Dr. Philipp Bachmann from the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. His topic is broad, as is his approach: "Why we are not zombies in digital attention markets despite sophisticated algorithmic manipulation attempts". The title alone provides a counterpoint to the current digital narrative in which platforms know everything, algorithms control everything and people are merely remote-controlled beings.

Bachmann does not disagree with this reduction head-on, but he does disagree firmly. Yes, he says, the possibilities for manipulation are real. Yes, digital systems are sophisticated. Yes, AI, platform logic and new optimization techniques are shifting the balance of power. But anyone who deduces from this that people are merely will-less recipients is only telling half the truth.

His crucial point is an anthropological one. The human brain is old, the media world is new. Information has been scarce for almost the entire history of mankind, today attention is scarce. That is why marketing, PR and advertising have long since become part of a circular arms race: Systems learn, people react, systems adapt, people adapt. Advertising interruptions lead to evasion strategies. Attempts at manipulation generate counter-reflections. Platforms entice, users develop distance, multiple identities, detox rituals or simply new habits.

This is precisely why, according to Bachmann, creativity remains central. Not as a pretty ingredient, but as an actual form of survival in an over-optimized world of communication. He states unequivocally what often gets lost in the series of numbers: creative thinking cannot replace numbers, but neither can numbers replace creative thinking.

His example of El Tony Mate is particularly strong in this context. Bachmann shows how native advertising and AI systems can intertwine. A supposedly editorial article about the health benefits of Mate is picked up by AI response systems as a source. The content therefore not only lives on in the medium itself, but also migrates into the logic of ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity. Advertising is therefore not just played out, but integrated into new response architectures. For Bachmann, this is more than just a clever case. It is an indication that classic PR work, editorial credibility spaces and creative topic management could become more important again in an AI-driven media world.

His appeal to the industry is correspondingly clear: don't treat people cynically. Take them seriously in their world. And to retain a love of creativity despite all the data fixation.

The real game changer is in the smartphone

If Bachmann provides the theory of the battle for attention, then Moritz Schneider and Andreas Weiss from Mediaschneider provide perhaps the most practical data set of the morning. At the center is the new Mobile Panel from Media Focus, which measures smartphone usage passively via an app. The panel includes 1000 people and records interactions, usage times, app behavior and - on selected platforms - even delivered social ads.

The difference to previous studies is fundamental. Until now, much of the research was based on interviews, memory logs and self-reporting. Now we have real behavioral data. Not estimated, not remembered retrospectively, but technically measured. This is precisely where the disruptive potential of this new data basis lies.

The figures are impressive. On average, the Swiss population spends 3 hours and 22 minutes a day on their smartphones. It is not the youngest, but the 30 to 64-year-olds who lead the way. Even the 65+ age group still spends almost three hours a day on it. The smartphone is therefore definitely no longer a youth phenomenon, but everyday infrastructure.

Over the course of the day, there is no spectacular midday slump, but a clear peak in the late afternoon between 5 and 6 pm. Anyone who wants to know when attention is particularly concentrated in everyday mobile life will get a much more precise answer here for the first time.

The apps are even more exciting. YouTube is the frontrunner in terms of daily usage time. In the overall population, the platform is used for just under 14 minutes per day, although its daily reach is significantly lower than WhatsApp. Among 16 to 29-year-olds, the findings are downright massive: a good 27 minutes of YouTube usage per day. Almost half an hour. Every day. Instagram follows closely behind, WhatsApp remains unchallenged in terms of reach, TikTok is smaller in terms of breadth but relevant in terms of intensity.

This constellation in particular is highly interesting for the advertising industry. Because it shifts the focus away from the mere logic of reach. Reach remains important. But duration of use, reception situation and time of day are becoming more important. In other words, it is not just the question "How many?" that counts, but increasingly also "How long?" and "At what moment?".

Moritz Schneider gets to the heart of the matter in the discussion after the presentation: the great innovation of this data is that media usage time can now be measured in real terms. And this is precisely what is likely to become central to media planning in the future.

YouTube goes from channel to habit

The fact that YouTube appears several times this morning is no coincidence. Looking back at the advertising year 2025, the platform has already remained stable in terms of gross advertising revenue. In the mobile panel, it dominates usage time. And in the social ad context, it is one of the most important places where advertising and attention come together.

What is visible here is more than just another platform ranking. YouTube seems to be becoming increasingly established as a habitual medium: between entertainment, learning, music, shorts, background use and targeted searches. The platform is not just social media, not just streaming, not just a video archive. It is a bit of everything - and that is precisely why it is so deeply anchored in everyday life.

For brands, this means that YouTube is no longer a side vegetable in media planning. The platform has become a central attention space. One that not only provides reach, but also reception time.

Retail apps, overlaps and the Röstigraben in cell phones

The deep dive into food retailer apps also shows how granular this new generation of data allows us to think. 79% of people in the panel have installed at least one such app, but only 2.8% have installed all of them. This speaks for clear preferences and against the idea that users are indiscriminately stocking up on brand apps.

It is also exciting to look at usage patterns: Sunday peaks at Coop, different usage durations between Coop and Lidl Plus, functional logics that are directly reflected in behavior. There is also a rösti divide in gender distribution, which raises further questions. This may all seem like a special case. In fact, it shows where media research is heading: away from the broad overall picture and towards detailed behavioral archaeology.

Tina Fixle opens the "Walled Gardens" a crack wide

Tina Fixle from Media Focus shows how relevant the new panel is for the advertising data itself. It is well known that the major platforms do not voluntarily supply their data to Swiss advertising research. So you have to take a different technological approach. This is exactly where in-app tracking comes into play.

Fixle shows how Media Focus makes social ads on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest and LinkedIn visible. For the first time, this brings more transparency to spaces that were previously largely black boxes. It is not only the platform distribution that is particularly revealing, but also the long tail: many brands that are hardly prominent in the traditional advertising market appear on social media with a relevant advertising presence. Facebook in particular clearly demonstrates this broad advertising landscape.

In a brief interview, Fixle says she was particularly surprised by the long tail. And something else: how much time the smartphone actually takes up. Seeing three to three and a half hours a day in black and white has its own impact.

Data is powerful when it changes decisions

Mitja Ruggle from the TX Group adds an important operational level to this perspective. Swiss Ad Impact, developed together with Media Focus, not only aims to measure advertising impact, but also to translate it into comparative values. The trick lies in benchmarking: an advertising recall of 30 percent is of little value without comparison. It can only be interpreted in an industry context.

This sounds sober, but it is crucial. Because it shifts the discussion from "The campaign feels good" to "The campaign performs in relation to its market environment". Ruggle's example from the financial sector shows this vividly: high advertising recall, but weak brand exposure. Only the adaptation of the branding in the second wave improved the effect. Data therefore becomes valuable when it makes creation and media planning more precise.

2026: cautious, more digital, but not without hope

Roland Ehrler from the SWA concludes by painting a broader picture of the industry. Despite geopolitical uncertainties, advertising clients are not pessimistic, but cautious about 2026. The majority of turnover and profit expectations remain stable to slightly positive. Budgets are dominated by continuity. Digital continues to grow, offline is coming under greater pressure. The ratio is now 57 to 43 in favor of digital channels.

In the offline sector, TV and Out of Home remain robust, while print remains under pressure. In digital, video and search are gaining weight, while native is losing some ground. Clients cite AI and machine learning as the biggest challenge. At the same time, there is a growing need for partners who reduce complexity, provide ideas and create orientation.

In the concluding panel, a common wish list for the advertising year 2026 emerged: more quality instead of quantity, more transparency, more curiosity, less uniformity and, above all, more courage.

The real signal of this morning

The Brand Breakfast 2026 was therefore more than just a data event. It was a reflection of the mood of an industry that is acutely aware that it is on a threshold. Never before has it been possible to measure so much. Never before has usage data been so granularly available. Never before has it been so tempting to view media planning, creation and communication solely as an optimization problem.

And yet perhaps the most important sentence of the morning did not come from Excel logic, but from a media-sociological attitude: people are not just zombies, they are artists of life.

This is precisely the point of this morning. The new Mobile Panel from Media Focus is undoubtedly a major step forward. It shows when people look at their cell phones, how long they stay there, which apps they use and where they encounter advertising. It opens up walled gardens, creates new transparency and should be enormously valuable for agencies, marketers and clients.

But perhaps the best insight of this morning is another: The more precise the data becomes, the less ideas can become impoverished. Or to put it more bluntly: precisely because everything is becoming more measurable, creativity is once again becoming the hardest currency in the battle for attention. The mood at the concluding stand-up dinner was correspondingly positive.