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With the continued rise of channels like TikTok and an emergent prioritization of Gen Z consumers, there’s been a renewed focus on optimizing for attention in advertising. Marketers have become fixated on identifying the right formula for maximizing the chance at a memorable impression across fleeting content formats.This is a topic that’s had my own attention for some time now. I wrote about the data pointing toward diminishing attention spans of consumers and some opportunities for brands to consider in 2020, landing on the idea that a deeper focus on earned media moments and creative use of platforms could help defend against the trend.
While I still stand by positioning those strategies as opportunities, the past couple of years has me believing that there is more attention out there than we are led to believe. We might not be having monoculture moments as frequently, but we are still seeing big interest communities dedicating hours of time to things they care about and a strong content ecosystem supporting that. Whether it’s popular TV shows, summer blockbusters, high-stakes sports moments or current events around technology, politics, and culture, we see an abundance of long-form content surrounding the people and communities that are invested in that interest. YouTube discussions, multi-hour recap podcasts, deep dive writing and reporting, etc. all show consumers have quite a lot of attention when it’s something relevant to them.
But the challenge remains for brands looking to fit in. While consumers are not short on time and their attention can be held, advertising (particularly in newer channels) isn’t doing a great job of either fitting in or breaking through. This, in part, is why I believe we are seeing many default to short-form awareness or direct response content approaches.
More Channels, More Challenges
Alongside trying to find a magic formula for content length and audience interest, the never-ending proliferation of channels makes matters more challenging for marketers. IAB’s 2023 Outlook Survey shows anticipated spend increases across 9 different channels (not including the sub-groups and various networks, ad units and opportunities within each of those.)
While this many channels already feels like enough to contend with, the multiplication of content inventory isn’t slowing down - as any platform or publisher with an audience is rapidly looking to monetize them via the tried and true advertising model. Relatively recent apps and services like Uber and Netflix are just a couple of the latest to build out offerings to advertisers. So, with the mindset that there is less attention and more channels to fill than ever before…where does this leave brands and marketers?
The ‘Everything’ Fallacy
The chase is on. Many marketers faced with an expanding channel landscape are choosing to rapidly explore and insert their existing ads in an attempt to drive visibility and share of voice while the opportunity is new. Todd Kaplan, Pepsi’s CMO, provided a bit of insight in an interview with MarketingDive into how he is managing the challenge of fragmented channels and attention, noting “Obviously, you can’t be everywhere and everything to everyone.” He went on to emphasize the need for an assessment of potential brand value by channel and subsequently prioritize the ones that can help drive any kind of meaningful presence in the market.
Once the appropriate channel bets are identified, thinking through how best to be where your customers are and finding ways to make sure they don’t ignore you by showing up authentically continues to be the name of the game. However, I see this confluence of issues- perceived lack of attention and increasing fragmentation of channels- as starting to create a battle of sorts between idea-led work and channel-led work. But I’m not sure why we can’t have both.
Rediscovering Flexibility
There is a concept I have heard from advertising creatives that a creative platform or campaign should be ‘flexible,’ meaning it should be able to resonate with folks and communicate an idea in a way that’s agnostic of medium. It should work as effectively as a traditional television spot as it does formats akin to a tweet. For some, this may sound familiar or even be obvious common knowledge. Yet, so much brand content we see today seems to be disconnected from larger brand efforts. Identity and equity is shoved aside in favor of creating any type of content that is believed to satisfy platform-specific “best practices” suggesting there is a fear of making a misstep and losing valuable attention.
Most of my social feeds are cluttered with ads focused on short-term promotions, influencer or ambassador-created sponsored videos, or clearly ad hoc content designed to leverage ‘trending’ moments in time. These tactics certainly have a place (and, to be clear, can be effective when done well!) but too often they feel a bit random or forced. Potentially, these businesses feel the only way to stay relevant in some spaces is to let offers, content creators or trends fully represent their brand.
This kind of approach promotes a posture of always needing to ‘feed the beast’ of the social algorithms and generate increasingly more content that may not always be connected back to much at all from a brand standpoint, let alone feasible from an ongoing production standpoint. One hopes it will be good for memorability and salience, but past that it can be hard to know. If this pace keeps up, I would imagine brands are going to go even farther afield from their core strategies in search of more eyeballs. At what point does attention alone lose its value? If everyone else is taking the same tack, how memorable will you really be?
The Search for Answers Continues
In this race to the bottom of attention-grabbing tactics, there remains no obvious path forward. While I hope brands don’t lose the art of creative flexibility and the ability to facilitate ideas that capture attention at multiple levels, it is hard to ignore the amount of ground that needs to be covered from a channel perspective to remain relevant and present in consumers’ minds. However, reassessing the options and prioritizing based on brand fit, a la Pepsi's strategy, seems like a good place to start
I am not saying brands should remain rigid in creative or messaging. New channels certainly open up many valuable ways to communicate quickly and effectively, but brands shouldn’t be made to feel that they have to sacrifice their identity and long-term positioning, or that they have to quickly repurpose something that doesn't quite fit, to participate. There is a difference between intentionality and reactivity that needs to be negotiated. Hopefully, brands are not frantically rethinking their strategies and tactics every time a new channel or ad unit surfaces but it feels like some may be doing just that. Instead, there should be a confidence to let strategy, identity and measurement dictate where, how and why brands show up- not the mediums.
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