Due to the explosion of mobile devices, content and branded messaging, it’s becoming more important to create messages that draw in customers, rather than broadcasting ideas straight to them. Many metrics measured by ad hosts emphasize the interruptive nature of advertising—number of impressions, repeat impressions for individual users and time spent viewing the ad—which panelists on Monday said can actually drive customers away.

Natalie Monbiot, senior vice president of futures at Samsung, said that the methods of judging effectiveness of digital advertising emphasize ways that annoy consumers.

Ian Schafer, chief experience officer at Engine USA, added that “as long as we’re doing interruptive ads, we want to be as interruptive as possible.”

Despite pushback from Google, studies show that 60 percent of websites are mostly using autoplay ads; interruptive is by far the current paradigm.

“Research shows people just don’t like sound-on autoplay on the web,” said Russ Freyman, head of partnerships for emerging products at Google. “They find it disruptive.”

According to the executives, expanding voice technology, and more specifically emotion tracking, is likely to bring on the necessary shift in tactics. “The more data brands have, the better the advertising experience will be,” Schafer said.

“What we want to avoid is causing contempt,” Monbiot added.

They went on to describe the “birdshot” approach, or pushing interruptive content in front of as wide of an audience as possible. Brands are becoming suspicious of this. Both P&G and Unilever substantially reduced their conventional digital advertising budgets and saw little change in revenue. Rather than focus on spreading their message too thin, the panelists agreed that content worth seeking out would bring the best results.

“Advertising that’s native—it kind of disappears into the content,” Monbiot said.

Other discussions touched on the same point. Luis Di Como, senior vice president of global media at Unilever, emphasized the importance of creating “seek-out” content for the Chinese market. Keith Weed, CMO of Unilever, addressed the fact that 600 million consumers have installed an adblocker. “If you have a rubbish experience, they will indeed move away from your advertising,” he said.

Whatever the future may hold for the ad industry, the impetus is to change the approach sooner rather than later.

“The phone is probably the last screen we’re going to get to place ads on,” Schafer predicted. “The solution is going to come from new marketers, not from new platforms.”