How attention became the new currency

Scroll for a few seconds on any screen and it becomes obvious: everyone is competing for attention. Individuals chase visibility on social media, brands fight for space in overcrowded feeds, and politicians obsess over images that travel faster than speeches or policy papers. Attention today is no longer incidental. It is scarce, powerful, and increasingly decisive.

This raises a simple but central question: has attention become an economic asset in its own right, something that can be converted into money, influence, and power?

In a digital economy shaped by algorithms and content overload, visibility is no longer a side effect of influence. It is its starting point. Those who are seen attract demand. Those who attract demand move markets. And those who manage to stay visible increasingly control value.

Attention as economic capital

In an interview with The Beiruter, digital marketing professional Elias Saliba frames the shift clearly: “Attention is now the scarcest resource in the economy.”

“Products, services, and even ideas compete in the same feed, on the same screen, in the same few seconds,” he explains. “In practical terms, value is no longer created only by production or distribution, but by the ability to be noticed.”

That shift has direct economic consequences. “Brands that win attention reduce their cost of acquisition, accelerate trust, and compress time-to-growth,” Saliba says. “Economically, attention converts into demand, demand converts into sales, and sales convert into enterprise value. In today’s market, visibility is leverage.”

This is why attention is no longer abstract. It is measurable, monetizable, and increasingly decisive.

Global advertising data reflects this reality. According to Dentsu and WPP Media (GroupM) forecasts, worldwide advertising investment surpassed $900 billion in 2025 and is on track to exceed $1 trillion in 2026. Yet research by Nielsen and Kantar, echoed in Harvard Business Review’s work on the attention economy, shows that only a limited share of ads are actually remembered, making attention, not ad spend, the key challenge in today’s saturated media landscape.

From heritage to momentum

For decades, size and dominance were closely tied to budget and brand heritage. Today, Saliba argues, relevance matters more than legacy.

“Algorithms don’t care how long a brand has existed,” he says. “They care about engagement, momentum, and presence.”

A small brand with consistent visibility can now outperform a century-old brand that goes quiet. Markets increasingly reward momentum over history. What matters is not how old a brand is, but how present it is in people’s daily lives.

That presence builds what marketers call mental availability, how easily a brand comes to mind when a choice needs to be made. It is one of the strongest drivers of consumer behavior. Visibility compounds faster than capital because it continuously reinforces familiarity, trust, and preference, Saliba explains.

Why virality beats carefully designed campaigns

Unplanned viral moments often outperform carefully designed campaigns for a simple reason: they feel human.

People rarely share ads. They share stories.

According to Saliba, virality is driven by emotion, not polish. Unplanned moments carry authenticity, surprise, and cultural timing. They bypass skepticism in a way traditional advertising struggles to achieve. Carefully crafted campaigns optimize for control. Viral moments optimize for resonance.

In an era of ad fatigue, raw moments often travel further than refined messaging. Authenticity moves faster than perfection, especially in digital spaces where audiences have become highly resistant to overt promotion.

The Maduro–Nike moment

One of the clearest examples of attention translating into economic and symbolic value was the viral image of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro wearing a Nike Tech Fleece tracksuit at a moment of global political tension. The image circulated rapidly across social media and international news platforms, triggering widespread commentary that often focused less on the political context and more on the brand itself.

As reported by Time, online searches for the Nike Tech Fleece spiked immediately after the image went viral, with the specific grey tracksuit selling out in multiple sizes and markets within hours, despite the absence of any advertising campaign, endorsement, or public response from Nike.

According to Saliba, the image resonated precisely because it was never intended as branding. “Because it was proof, not promotion. Nike didn’t say anything, yet the world read everything into it,” he explains. “A dictator wearing Nike in a moment of global tension turned the brand into a silent symbol of power, dominance, and reach. It showed that Nike is not just a sports brand, but a global cultural force that transcends borders, ideologies, and politics.”

The message, Saliba adds, was unmistakable: “Even those who oppose the Western world live inside its brands. No campaign could have manufactured that level of symbolism.”

Macron and the power of optics

At the 2026 World Economic Forum in Davos, French President Emmanuel Macron unintentionally turned a simple wardrobe choice into a global media moment when he appeared onstage wearing reflective aviator sunglasses, not for style, but to conceal a minor eye injury. The striking “Top Gun-style” look quickly dominated social media and news cycles, prompting memes, commentary, and even a playful jab from U.S. President Donald Trump.

But the buzz wasn’t just cultural. The eyewear, identified as the Pacific S 01 model from French luxury maker Henry Jullien, triggered a sharp reaction in the shares of its parent company, Italian-listed iVision Tech, as traders and investors responded to the viral imagery.

Macron’s sunglasses moment illustrates how a single visual cue can generate real economic impact in today’s attention economy, where being seen in the right way can move markets as much as messages.

The chocolate that went viral and sold out

In the algorithmic economy, demand can be created before a brand even exists. This dynamic became visible when a Dubai-made chocolate went viral on TikTok in late 2023.

Short videos showcasing its thick pistachio filling and dramatic “break” racked up tens of millions of views within weeks, without any paid advertising.

The result was immediate. The product sold out repeatedly. Waiting lists formed. International shipping requests surged as online searches spiked. Social media analytics recorded over 100 million cumulative views tied to the trend.

Within weeks, a local dessert turned into a premium export product, a reminder of how algorithmic attention can compress years of brand-building into days and translate visibility into real cash flow.

Can a single viral moment be worth millions?

According to Saliba, a single viral moment can generate the equivalent of millions of dollars in marketing value, but not because of views alone. What matters is positioning.

Virality can reshape how a market perceives a brand almost overnight, achieving in 24 hours what traditional media plans attempt over months or even years. Paid media buys exposure. Virality buys meaning.

The crucial part, Saliba stresses, is what happens after the spike. Brands that benefit most are those that reinforce viral moments through narrative consistency, retargeting, and strategic amplification. They turn a flash into a wave and convert cultural relevance into sustained visibility. When handled correctly, virality stops being luck and becomes leverage.

Is all attention good attention?

Attention itself is neutral. Meaning determines value.

Visibility without alignment can erode trust. A brand may gain reach for the wrong reason and lose credibility in the process. Attention only becomes equity when it reinforces identity; otherwise, it remains noise, Saliba cautions.

In economic terms, attention without strategic coherence inflates awareness but depreciates brand value.

Lebanon: when attention outperforms money

In markets like Lebanon, where budgets are limited and access to capital is constrained, attention takes on a different economic weight. “Attention cannot replace money, but it can outperform it,” Saliba says. “In constrained markets, creativity becomes capital. Brands that master storytelling, timing, and cultural relevance can outgrow competitors with larger budgets.” Consistent visibility, smart content, and community-driven momentum, he explains, can bend the cost curve. “In Lebanon, attention is not a luxury. It is the most efficient growth strategy available.”

The new economic equation

The attention economy is not a trend. It is a structural shift. As production becomes increasingly commoditized and advertising loses impact, visibility plays a growing role in determining who grows, who scales, and who disappears.

For decades, the rule was simple: time is money.

Today, that equation has changed.

In the modern economy, attention is money.