Deeply Distracted Is The Digital Condition
The dude’s on his phone.
And that pretty much explains it.
- His reckless driving
- His vacant look in meetings
- His constant obsession with curating a manufactured self-image
Now, if we can, let’s pause all judgments and realize that every marketer under the sun is working to disrupt this man from his handheld trance.
It’s a herculean task. The spell cast by the platforms is seemingly unbreakable. People are reportedly spending an average of 7.5 hours a day engaging with media, with 29% of that time juggling multiple streams.
“In 2014, a group of researchers out of Stanford University found that people switch between content on computers as often as every 19 seconds, with 75% of on-screen content viewed for less than a minute.” — Jacqueline Detwiler https://t.co/E6oXoa4nDP- David Burn (@davidburn) October 23, 2019
Harsh as it is, every marketer and every media company is posting into this digital wind.
Brand Messaging in the Time of Rapid Thumb Movement
Digital behavior means scrolling, which explains the power of platforms.
Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and the rest are all built on the need for next. The need for next diminishes the now and obliterates the past. Ergo, the need for next is a vexing problem for marketers and western culture.
How is a single-player-a well-heeled brand, a struggling media company, or anyone else-going to slow down the scrolling (which means altering the deeply ingrained behaviors of millions of people), so people can focus on the content offering?
Not the next content offering. The one in front of you now.
My belief is content offerings in digital media-no matter how compelling-must lead people to a non-digital place. At a brand-sponsored event, or at the brand’s retail store, the relationship between prospect and company can develop naturally.
Internet Spinners Are Spun
When you’re ready to humanize your marketing communications, we’re here for you. And yes, we’re on a different page, by design.
What they don’t teach in business school is the value of Return on Kindness (RoK). In the real world, where marketers and their customers exist, RoK is everything.
Managers who care about Return on Kindness, ask these questions of themselves and their team:
- Did we manage to make people feel good about the interactions they had with us?
- Did we show the customer the kind of respect all humans deserve?
- Did we listen and respond with humility?
Brands are the public face of the company. Customers and prospects are real people with real emotional needs that always accompany their desire for product or service solutions. Therefore, marketing communications is never purely functional. At it’s best, Marcom is part poetry and that’s why suits in glass towers must go down the elevator and take a walk in their customer’s shoes. To hear the voice of the people.
When you need a walking partner and someone who will actively listen and hear your Marcom problems, let’s walk and talk.
We can also add hard plastic discs to the walk and play a round of disc golf, which is one of the fastest-growing sports in the world.
