They’re not distracted. They’re disinterested.
By Benjamin Pfutzenreuter
Executive Creative Director
Modern marketing has become pretty abstract. In fact, there’s no point in human history where there’s been more means to connect with the consumer than right now. However, while it might seem that advertising has changed, it is important to remember one thing really hasn’t:
People still hate every ad they see, except of course: the ones they don’t.
The problem isn’t that people are distracted, but that advertising itself feels like a distraction. They sat through the ads, heard the arguments and, well—they didn’t really feel it. People binge entire series, devour hours of podcasts, and scroll through endless niche content with undivided attention. They don’t have short attention spans—they just have high standards. And if advertising feels like an interruption instead of an invitation, they tune out.
So while marketing today has become more diffuse through consumer relationship management, experiential advertising, brand partnerships and beyond, everything still serves the same purpose as ever: Reduce price sensitivity, increase conversion.
Now, the reduction of marketing to a multi-trillion-dollar popularity contest shouldn’t be seen as bad news. In fact, as creative people, it’s the exact reason we have intuitively known the work has to be good all along.
It’ll never be enough to be right, informative, and abundant. Only the power of creativity can reliably bundle every channel in a positively memorable way for consumers. And while we consistently succeed at this with clients large and small, we have always found not even two dollars spent on marketing are well spent in different directions.
Everything should draw consumers into the center of the brand. Nowhere else.
After all, the odds are always too long, consumer patience always too short, and the investments always far too critical to commit to any message with anything less than the absolute sincerity of powerful creative expression. Too often marketing describes the focus of the consumer as fleeting.
We disagree.
We believe pop-psychology deriding the decline of the attention span is far overstated.
Absent feeling, advertising cannot and will not find a place in the mind of consumers. Who could blame them? What’s the last great advertisement you can recall yourself? This isn’t a rhetorical question. Take a moment, think of something.
If it is an old ad, one you haven’t seen for years, don’t be ashamed. Much of advertising today isn’t that creative, at least not in the ways that matter most to memory. Instead, appreciate how powerful it was, and if you’re anything like us: recognize how great ideas, and great brands simply have a gravity to themselves—that draws you in, and holds on.
Sometimes an infectious jingle shouts “Whopper Whopper Whopper Whopper” until you cannot forget it. Other times, an app helps protect professional women athletes from harassment online in a way fans deeply resonate with. One time a parody Hallmark movie unexpectedly turned into a real Hallmark movie making the parody real. At BarkleyOKRP, we eagerly add to the list every day with our clients.
There are more answers than ever on how to draw in consumers. Endless ways to meet people in nearly every moment of life with specificity, meaning, and power. Yet among all of them remains the same core question marketing has been working against for the better part of two hundred years: How do you attract and keep consumers?
Be insightful. Be creative. Bravely so. Intelligently so. Make the marketing mean something. Make it feel something. Because when consumers feel it: they’ll hold on, as markets shift, and circumstances change.
They’ll hold on, for life.
Are you looking for a partner who creates gravity for your brand with ideas that attract and keep your customers for life? Contact our Chief Growth Officer, Jason Parks, at jparks@barkleyokrp.com to learn more.