Every ad is a tax of attention levied on the audience, misdirected towards a cause the audience has not consented to. The less relevant the ad, the greater the tax. Within this model, creators and audiences find their kinship interrupted.
The emergence of shoppable ads, as exemplified above by BuzzFeed, is a format that allows brands to personalise the products an audience sees. Moreover, it also reduces the path to purchase, making items available for purchase at the tap of a finger. It’s an advertising format — and consumer behaviour — that is rapidly becoming more commonplace.