• by Felicia Greiff , Staff Writer, March 30, 2016

In a study done with the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), 30% of millennial respondents, 31% of Gen Y respondents, 25% of Gen X respondents and 32% of boomers said they don't pay attention to advertising.

Additionally, the survey found almost half of respondents were affected by mobile ads in some way, but don't interact with such ads. Twenty-nine percent of boomers don't interact with ads on mobile devices, and that number increases to 50% with millennials. 

The study, which was based on 1,200 interviews with Brazilian mobile and tablet users ages 14 to 55 and conducted last year, shows a trend many marketers fear: their ads going unnoticed. 

So do Brazilians ignore ads at a higher rate than other parts of the world? 

Not by much. A 2014 study from Nielsen, xAd and Telmetrics found top reasons why U.S. smartphone users didn't click on ads were that they weren’t interested in an offering (47%) or the ad wasn't relevant to them (38%). Twenty-one percent didn't look at ads at all.

Mobile -- a rapidly evolving medium -- is sure to offer more challenges and opportunities in the coming years. And the ads that capture consumers' attention and engage them will hopefully lead to a decrease in the number of people not looking at ads. 

At the 4A's Transformation conference in Miami last week, a panel on a mobile disruption mentioned consumers' increased expectations for mobile. Kate Watts, managing director, Huge, said people want content to load faster and brands to anticipate needs based on their behaviors. They also want cohesive experience across devices, with 66% of device owners getting frustrated when content is not synced across devices.

The good news? Eighty-five percent of consumers prefer personalized content, like an ad tailored to their personal interests, according to Adobe research.