Blinding flash of the obvious: It’s time to move away from disruption to engagement. How? By giving people what they want … like time, relevant information, entertainment and connectivity!
Let’s take time, for example. Recently on what shaped up to be once again a boring Emmy telecast, comedian Lewis Black added some life to the evening, blasting television executives for their USA Today approach to programming. He screamed, “People are not monkeys – when we are watching our shows, don’t interrupt them by telling us what is on next. Give us the respect of being able to focus. It’s because of you that we all have ADHD.”
As he ranted and raved, I started thinking about how his rants apply to our marketing tactics and what makes good marketing today. In today’s USA Today society, we marketers provide our consumers with what we think they want. We give them smart, quick and colorful USA Today like snippets of information about our products that we feel will capture their short attention spans in order to get our message across.
And, while many of our campaigns are successful, is it possible that we too are guilty of what Lewis Black mentions? Do our campaigns under-estimate our consumers’ ability to focus and thereby do our consumers a disservice? And, what about our products? As we focus on the fastest way to get their message across, do they suffer as well?
To me, good marketing resonates with the people. It is not just about our ROI but about the energy we evoke. And, if our consumers want time to be able to focus, it is up to us to give it to them. Take Nike’s time clock promotional ad (pictured below) as a great example of what I’m talking about. The copy – someone who is twice as busy as you is out running – really brings my point home.
Being busy no longer has to equate urgency. It can mean that we can take our lives into our own hands and determine what is right for us. Therefore, it is up to us marketers to create messaging that both gives our consumers time and allows our products to just do it. And, by doing so, we will create an atmosphere that allows our products to shine.
Jim Holbrook
CEO, EMAK
Publisher of Stay Tuned
