In Scarcity Thinking in Marketing, I’d written about how, in an era of ‘infinite’ consumption choices, attention is arguably the most precious commodity for a brand. Also, as Faris pointed out in his excellent post, it is a zero sum game, and we’re approaching “peak attention”. We’re also well on our way to manipulating (read fracking)  it. State of the art marketing technology (say, programmatic) can sift through a consumer’s data from multiple sources, and use interest, intent and a bunch of other contexts to deliver an ad at the precise point when he/she can act favourably.

Very few brands, however, are close to this level though. Having the data is in itself a huge step, converting that to actionable insights is even huger! Data can be true, but not necessarily accurate. (read) Also, arguably marketing tech is still a wild west with snake oil salesmen. But more importantly, even if we assume that all the brands will finally get there, it then becomes a ‘square one’ driven by who can pay the most. In that respect, I do not see this as a sustainable advantage. Arguably again, at that point in time, new tech might come up with a potential of first mover advantage, but the way I’ve seen the digital marketing narrative evolve, it is probably an optimisation play than anything else. e.g. In the early days of Facebook marketing, much was made about storytelling and organic Likes, but look where we are now! Similarly, something radically different like VR is now being talked of as paradigm shifting storytelling opportunity, but until proven otherwise, I’ll be cynical. 

Is there an alternate path to this arms race? In Marketing in the Post-Truth Era, the author refers to Kahnemann’s System 1 and System 2 approaches of the brain – System 1 being fast, automatic, and intuitive and System 2 being slower, and analytical. The context there is asking marketers to use their System 1 to make decisions, but I have a slightly different take. In terms of consumer decision making , attention scarcity and marketing based on catching the customer at the right point with the right messaging aligns perfectly to System 1. But I would argue that focusing on System 2 of the consumer’s brain might be more profitable in the long run, and my argument is that the way to doing it by building a brand with a world view.

What does that mean? To begin with, going beyond vision and mission statements and actually articulating a character in day to day interactions with the customer. Beyond CSR and posturing into backing intention with action. It also means not being “everything to everyone”, and being mindful of the choices it makes across the facets of business. And this worldview need not be consistent across time, after all the world and its citizens keep changing their views, but it does need to be cohesive and maintain an integrity of intent. Will it polarise users? Yes it will, and that is the point. Apple was a classic example until it wasn’t. I have seen Cleartrip executing this regularly. (examples 1, 2, 3) The endgame, if you can call it that, is to be the first port of call when the user has a consumption intent in the brand’s category. Not because of an ad that he/she saw, but because of a deeper attachment to what the brand stands for. Obviously I’m taking product, pricing and convenience as hygiene factors here. The first question I get asked when I discuss this is whether it will scale. And my reply is that maybe not, but scale, and the rate of growth are themselves conscious decisions!

The more I think of it though, it cannot be an either/or. But given that we’re already well into the era of algorithms navigating our life for us – literally in the form of self driving cars and metaphorically through the fake news we see on our feeds – it is difficult to visualise brands which would want to be distinct and do the hard work required for the System 2 approach. However, if you’re interested,  David Carr gives you a good place to start.

Or maybe, in the medium term, the user will  decide this for us by building his/her own consumer ‘stack’ and move from paying attention to being paid for attention. Hello, blockchain. (read)

Steven Wastie’s Periodic Table of Marketing Signals is a fantastic resource in terms of what it sets out to do – a framework of metrics for measuring the impact of marketing activities. But it also made me think – if these are the signals we should measure, imagine the number of customer interactions that are happening online and offline! It is no wonder that in what Colin Kelley calls Marketing 3.0, machines are becoming smarter than marketers. When consumers are flooded with prevailing volumes of marketing communication, messaging that is uniquely crafted for them (by machines using data to analyse needs) would obviously be more appealing. There is a time factor at play there, just as it is there in customer service bots and automated marketing. Convenience for the customer, speed and scale in predictive marketing communication, leading to better revenue. Pretty much the core idea of programmatic. What’s not to like? Of course, the execution leaves a lot to be desired, and there’s fraud, but the concept remains solid.

Getting back to time, the growth engine our time – capitalism – loves scale. And I’d argue that scale tends to commoditisation. Take one of the best examples of ‘special’ – the iPhone – and look at where it now is in the scheme of smartphones. In the era of commoditisation, one of the most difficult ‘payments’ to get the consumer to do is paying attention! In Faris’ insightful post, he points out that we might be approaching ‘peak attention’, and attention as he rightfully points out is a zero sum game. Towards the end of the post, he writes on how we have to find untapped resources – he cites intention (attributed to Doc Searls) as an example.

However, I wonder if in brand marketing, our thoughts are being held captive by the growth engine and restricted by its concepts of scale and scarcity thinking . Maybe, if we step out of these constraints, there are alternate paths. One such is what exists in my drafts as “brand as a worldview”. More on that in a bit.

Brand planning has always been an interest area, and I’ve had the good fortune of knowing a few brilliant planners, and learning what I could from them. Still continue to. A simple search would throw up a number of planning frameworks, and many of the fundamentals would still hold.  However, technology is throwing open more options in terms of manifestation/output. I found some good perspectives in this article which is about that CMOs can learn from technologists. The fundamental theme is dynamism. But such are the challenges that they remind me of We are trapped in our inadequate mental models ~ John Edwarrd Huth (via)

I’d think that brand narratives are (also) shaped by the story telling devices at their disposal. As Mitch Joel points out here, the nuances of marketing vs advertising need to be understood as brands struggle to transition from the mass advertising era. One-way media allowed a linear flow, but current platforms demand flexibility, and customised rendition across contexts and platforms. If consumers are the new media, the stories should be ones that they can identify with, fit into their personal narratives, and therefore inclined to share.

Many of the familiar narrative devices have focused on getting attention, but that is increasingly difficult. It’s not that ‘awareness’ can be ignored, but not only is it not enough, but attention for the sake of itself cannot work. I really liked this post (again by Paul Isakson) where he encapsulates the thought in the title itself Adding Value > Getting Attention. The > works not just as ‘greater than’ but also as ‘leads to’. Or, in other words, Be the Company Customers can’t Live Without.

In a highly fragmented media and consumption scenario, how does a brand/business know what to focus on and when to shift from it?A wonderful blog I have discovered recently is that of Paul Isakson. This post, for instance, throws light on the need for the brand to stay true to its own story, and therefore focus on specific audiences. Another of my favourite posts focuses on something that I have always believed in and liked – the back story, and its relevance for brands. What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow ~ Buddha

To get there involves a cultural change, and tectonic shifts. I also think that this will force brands to think about scale. In a mass media world, a brand could get ‘reach’ by throwing money. That can still be done, even on social platforms, but when attention is not the only thing that matters, the challenge is to build relevancy and scale it – across time. That requires new planning frameworks, and possibly means a

(via)

We started with FB, so let’s go full circle. Even as late as last year, there was massive skepticism around Facebook’s ability to adapt and thrive in the mobile space. In the last earnings call, they reported that mobile had contributed 41% to revenue. (read) It would seem that Facebook knew its story, what to focus on,  and stuck to it.

until next time, refresh

The interesting thing was that I would have watched the Super Bowl ads without any prompting. Which makes me wonder whether the logical and scientific way proposed above to ‘game’ the attention economy is the best approach. I think my discomfort stems from the fact that this leans more towards the ‘media’ in social media and looks at the social platforms from an information dissemination perspective.

My consumption of the ads was more out of interest. The term ‘Intention Economy‘ springs to mind immediately in this context.

The intention economy is an approach to viewing markets and economies focusing on buyers as a scarce commodity. The consumers’ intent to buy drives the production of goods to meet their specific needs.

The thought is whether/how this can be applied to consumption of content. If it can, then the approach would be to make the content as easy to find and accessible as possible, to ‘appear’ at the time of demand, and create different contexts to drive that consumption.

There is another perspective too. The easiest way to  elucidate it would be with the example of Google Reader/ Twitter Lists, where I pay attention to certain content creators, because I trust and value the content they produce. As Edelman’s Trust Barometer would tell you, the ‘trust in experts’ has actually increased this year. Their appeal does not really depend on the attention metrics.

Can’t think of any other ‘angles’, but if you do, please drop me a line, or comment.

So perhaps like the owned-paid-earned forms of content, brands will have to work on all 3 fronts. Harness expert power (employees and others), seed efficiently, create and use contexts effectively, and be easily accessible (like the brand-stream I proposed last week)

until next time, at ease now

PS: New research on why consumers ‘break up’ with brands on email, FB, Twitter, could be taken as a pointer to look at   alternatives to information dissemination.