I find it amusing watching all the marketing buzzards out there tripping over themselves trying to steal attention, filling spreadsheets with worthless metrics, and peddling shiny new objects while playing the fantasy marketing game.
Like gambling, it is tough to win in marketing.
To have a shot, you need to understand how the game is played.
For heed, you need hue.
Come again?
Allow me to explain.
While attention may be increasingly hard to get, paying attention to the hue, that is, “the overall character or appearance to the mind,” as Sir Merriam-Webster calls it, is even more important.
In other words, attention is not the end goal for marketers, it’s what the consumer thinks/feels after the attention is paid.
And these days, you need to pay for attention!
That’s why the digital toll booths called Google and Facebook are expected to command 72% of the overall advertising pie by 2026, according to WPP’s media buying firm GroupM projects.
Crazy right?
Attention is only free for the very few brands that do it right…
…the brands that are sought out and don’t need to be “found.”
Great brands don’t need to steal attention to win the day.
They go all-in on the hue…
…focusing on character and empathy…
…the lifetime value of the customer.
Today, marketers are like drug dealing spam pushers – selling attention for a quick buzz in today’s digitized wasteland.
The problem is that nobody is really paying attention.
The messages don’t stick, don’t resonate, and instantly vaporize.
So, before you pay, pay close attention to the hue of your marketing – it’s where the real payoff is.
Roads, Rails, and Wires
Our world is connected like never before.
It used to be fairly simple and straightforward, an interconnected system of roads, rails, and wires – transporting cars, trains, and voices.
Today we’re wireless – and get anywhere in an instant, at least online.
For all of its convenience, the connected digital world has come at a big cost…
…our privacy.
Knowingly, or not, we traded it away, and now it’s gone for good.
Just because “big data” knows what you’re searching for online, or what you’re watching on Netflix, or buying in the grocery stores – it doesn’t make consumers’ lives any better.
Consumers are smart – they don’t want to be stalked 24/7 on every connected device they use with your bad advertising.
And no, it’s not relevant to keep serving messages once the demand/supply equation has concluded.
Keep this in mind when you’re buying attention from the marketing buzzards or paying your share of digital tolls, maybe these find folks don’t want to hear from you at all?
Unfortunately, whether you like it or not, in business, it all comes down to marketing – the best marketers always win, or so “they” say.
But consider for a moment this thought…
…the best marketing, may, in fact, be no marketing at all!
Imagine that.
Does it really make sense to keep trying to “buy” attention when nobody heeds your hue?
It’s time to break some rules in the marketingverse.
Did you know I hate rules?
Never liked them, never will.
But I sure pay attention to them.
Why?
As the great Pablo Picasso once said:
“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”
In our case, don’t pay for attention that you don’t deserve.
Go earn it.
Be a trusted advisor and put the people you seek to serve first…
…you’ll surely then command their total attention.
Stay unruly ~
