Out with perfection, open the door to the enchanting element of surprise

The world’s first TV ad ran on 1st July, 1941, in the US, during a major-league baseball game. Back then, viewers were exposed to around 100 commercial messages a day. Today, that figure is 6,000 – and growing.

TGI data shows that last year we spent 12 hours and 13 minutes consuming media a day. That’s up from 10 hours and 36 minutes in 2019, a rise of 15 per cent in just four years.

Whether it is increased ad loads – the number of ads shown on a page – in digital, the explosion of digital audio options, or the increasing supply of video and TV inventory – there is ever more competition for attention. So, what should marketers do?

Plan for attention

In a world of content abundance, reach becomes what is referred to as a hygiene factor, or basic requirement. As a result, the scarcity of attention is now as much a concern for marketers as the scarcity of time or budget.

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As we cram more and more in, our ability to retain information in any meaningful way decreases dramatically. Advertisers need to plan for attention, while keeping a mindful eye on reach. That’s why attention is such a hot topic, but also a problematic one.

It is a particular problem in digital channels and arguably the current Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) viewability standards have not aged well. With content flooding our screens like a fire hydrant, digital advertising can feel like a game of Where’s Wally? An ad can be 100 per cent in view but gain zero per cent attention.

It’s a topic that Karen Nelson Field from Amplified Intelligence, a leader in this space, spoke about recently at a TV Audience Measurement (TAM) Ireland Event, looking at issues such as dwell time and slow and fast decay, and questioning the validity of any video streaming that doesn’t pass the two second minimum attention threshold.

Erosion of trust

Although some variant of the term fake news has been with us for at least as long as we have had news, it was the defining phrase of the 2016 US elections. It was a Donald Trump tweet that popularised it as part of our lexicon and made it hugely popular in meme culture.

Trust is something that is earned slowly and destroyed in an instant. Social media has long been accused of the dissemination of fake news but 2023 was a year unlike any other in terms of the demise of trust.

Kantar TGI data suggests 48 per cent of Irish adults do not trust what they hear on social media. Indeed, only 40 per cent believe their money is safe in banks. Just 19 per cent believe what they read online.

While trust in advertising may always have been lacking, we have seen a blanket decline in trust across the board.

The Reputations Agency’s RepTrak Survey, which measures trust across all sectors, from automotive to retail, saw trust scores decline for 15 of the 16 sectors measured last year. Ironically, financial/bank was the only one that remained stable. Communications/media came bottom of the list. So what should marketers do?

Support trusted publishers and resist the urge to focus all your efforts on chasing lowest common denominator cost-per-thousand (CPM) inventory. As trust continues to decline, trusted publishers will become more important. Newsrooms have quality control and fact checking will become more important as AI and deep fakes compound the problem of fake news.

Equally, support trusted platforms. Radio and digital audio perform incredibly well on trust measures, according to the dentsu Attention Economy 2023 report.

Outdoor, as a medium that is unashamedly indiscreet in terms of messaging and targeting, can be a great canvas to build trust too.

Make sure your site has content that meets consumer needs. Be an authority in your field. Ensure your on-site content is optimised for search engines to find and rank you.

Perfection rejection

While the urge to present our best selves will never fully disappear, consumers are pushing back. The success of social media channel BeReal, with 23 million active daily users, is a great example.

Whether it’s make-up free Pamela Anderson at Paris Fashion Week, a Cheetos-eating Kim Kardashian on the front cover of GQ or, ironically, the so-called book wealth aesthetic, where shelves feature real titles of different sizes as they appear in real homes, messiness is on trend.

The social media aesthetic has changed. The show-off Instagram look has been replaced by the more authentic, less polished aesthetic of TikTok.

The success of the recent Christmas ad for Charlie’s Bar in Enniskillen, which captured the public’s imagination and was picked up by news outlets around the world, is a case in point. So what should marketers do?

It’s not for every brand, but at a time when everyone has a perfect filter and access to AI to portray a fake life, people crave authenticity.

Brands can lean into this by partnering with content creators, choosing them wisely and taking a longer-term view rather than a one-and-done approach to content. Brands should also be prepared to give up a little control. Content creators may not follow your 150-slide look-book on brand guidelines, so this is not for everyone.

The great re-enchantment

We are in an age of anxiety, a time of polycrisis, where the combined impact of multiple crises creates a more significant effect than each would individually. Media is fuelling a sense of aloneness, together with a constant bombardment of social feeds.

The 24-hour news cycle has left many people jaded, with 46 per cent of adults saying they are “tired and burned out all the time” and 67 per cent agreeing that technology is making us “more detached from the real world”, according to a multimarket 2023 Wunderman Thompson Intelligence Report, which surveyed adults in the US, the UK and China.

Younger audiences are feeling disillusioned having witnessed climate crisis, Covid, war in Ukraine, Israel and Palestine and even riots in Dublin within the space of five years

Society, and the world as they knew it, seems to be in constant turmoil. The constant doom and gloom of the news cycle has created a crisis fatigue and we see people seeking joyfulness as a coping mechanism.

Whether it is the success of the Barbie Movie, Taylor Swift as Time’s person of the Year, Lego’s adult cafe in Smithfield or the growing interest in visiting Lapland at Christmas, adults are seeking out activities that would otherwise be deemed child-like. So what should marketers do?

Take silly seriously. Have some fun with your brand. Create joyful experiences if that’s right for you tonally. Escapism is a great antidote to the reality of the world in which we live. Lean into this and look to invest in experiential campaigns that can get people more engaged and interacting with your brand.

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