As brand awareness shifts, we must shift

Let's compare :
Brand awareness in 2005 online ads drove a 3 percent lift in brand awareness. That boost fell to 2.2 percent over the course of the following two years.

One factor in the sagging brand impact of digital ads might simply be competition among large brands for share of mind. A few years ago there were less big brands online than there are now. Now everybody's online. Every brand you can think of has a a reasonable amount of spend online

Marketers : What do you about the declines.

1. place more emphasis on non-traditional ad formats and venues, such as viral marketing and social marketing campaigns. Viral media and social marketing campaigns can really accelerate a brand, but of course,consumers need to choose to engage with them.

From the point of view of marketing research companies:
Measuring brand lift for original branded content and social marketing campaigns has it's challenges. Working with all the new things coming out can help, this includes establishing relationships with the new widget ad networks and tracking original branded content.