​People don’t have the mental capacity to take in everything going on around them, so they are wired to ignore most of it and only attend to things that might represent a danger or an opportunity.

This means that brand communications need to stand out from the environment and be distinctive in order to grab attention.
 
Once attention has been gained, people retain whatever they find most engaging and forget the rest. It’s not uncommon for less than half of an audiovisual ad to be recalled minutes after being seen, and when it comes to feelings, people tend to only remember the strongest emotion they felt and the emotion they were left with at the end.