Marketing's key: consumer attention

Nowadays, it is difficult for consumers to concentrate on watching an advertisement. What's more, there are too many and diverse messages, so it is difficult to capture consumers' attention, resulting in ineffective marketing. The author of this article shares several views on how to capture consumers' attention. Let's take a look.

What is the most frustrating thing for marketing students?

It’s not that the plan has been revised 800 times, or that the budget cannot be obtained, or that there is no idea. Rather, a plan was made that you think is great, but the effect is far below expectations, and it even seems overwhelming. However, it fails to bring business growth, and when you ask consumers, they are confused and say “What? You placed an advertisement? I didn’t see it”. Only those who have tried it know the frustration.

There’s obviously nothing wrong with the strategy, the placement is precise, the creativity is very fitting, the material execution is OK, and everything seems logical and reasonable; but why did it flop as soon as it came out?

Today we are going to talk about one of the main causes of marketing failure: consumer attention.

The following are just personal opinions for reference only.

1. Why does marketing fail?

Oftentimes, before we release the material, we will first ask some people to test it.

There were no problems during testing. Everyone said that the needs were well captured, that they could empathize with the product, and that they would buy and download it. However, after it was released, it was discovered that the effect was mediocre. Why is this?

Because during the test, the subjects actively read all the content, but when it is actually released on the street, consumers may not pay attention to your content at all and may not see it at all.

Let’s first review the consumer decision model:

AIDMA: A (attention) I (interest) D (desire) M (memory) A (action)

AISAS: A (Attention) I (Interest) S (Search) A (Purchase) S (Share)

You must have seen these two theories many times, evolving from AIDMA (1898, Lewis) to AISAS (2005, Dentsu); the only things that have not changed in the link are: [Attention] and [Interest]. Yes, satisfying these two points is the prerequisite for you to start communicating with consumers.

Think back, when your mother started nagging, did you completely ignore her, show no interest at all, and really let it go in one ear and out the other?

Therefore, if you want your marketing to be effective, the first step is to capture the attention of consumers.

User minds are a must-have resource for brands, and consumer attention is also a must-have resource for marketing. It can be said to be the lifeblood of marketing. Without attention, nothing else can be achieved.

2. Where does consumer attention go?

Nowadays, it is very difficult to capture consumers' attention and establish communication connections with them in a noisy environment; let's first explore where the problem lies? What is the reason why it is so difficult for us to capture consumers’ attention?

Starting from the most basic logic, in the process of communicating with the audience, there must be three elements from a physical level: communication scenario (under what circumstances consumers receive information), media carrier (media that carries marketing content), and communication content (specific marketing content). Let's look at where the problem lies around these three elements.

1. [Scenario] Conflicting goals: interrupting the audience’s current goal, and the audience is indifferent

Let’s first simply define the scenario. The scenario is: someone wants to/is doing something at a specific time and place. Don’t worry about the definition, just get a general understanding of it.

Many times, marketing content is contrary to or completely irrelevant to the consumer’s goals in the current scenario, and consumers often choose to ignore it; even if they notice it, it is difficult for them to be interested in your ad. For example: I am in a hurry to take the subway to work, and I will not pay attention to the ads on both sides of the subway passage; I am in a hurry to unlock a shared bicycle, but you give me a pop-up window asking me to share fission, I will close the pop-up window within 0.1 seconds; I am going to go to Weibo to eat melons, and a financial management advertisement appears on the screen, I will skip it directly, etc.

This is a very common situation. Recently, during the Double Eleven shopping festival, the opening screen of Weibo was often dominated by Double Eleven advertisements. Someone complained, "I don't open Weibo to check out Taobao." This is a very typical contradiction of purpose, which interrupts the audience's goals in the current scenario and causes disgust.

2. [Media] Media Ignorance: The media is ignored by consumers and the reach is ineffective

What does media ignore mean?

Simply put, even if the media reaches the target audience accurately, it is often ignored by the audience. For example, when you go to work and arrive downstairs at the company, you are wearing headphones, browsing Weibo, and waiting in line for the elevator. At this time, it is difficult for you to notice what the elevator advertisement is saying. You and your friends are shopping in the mall, drinking Heytea, and chatting. It is difficult for you to notice the advertisements on the mall’s large LED screen, etc.

Today, media choices are growing explosively, and consumers have countless media touchpoints, but their attention is limited; the time allocated to each medium is limited, and it is already difficult to reach consumers accurately. In many scenarios, many media will be ignored by consumers.

3. [Content] Content is dull: nothing new, no interest

Now the content explodes:

• The amount of information we receive every day is simply too much to read;
• Under the influence of various clickbait titles and public accounts, consumers’ threshold for interest in content has become very high.

In such a context, it is really difficult for content to attract the audience's attention, arouse the audience's interest, and make the audience remember it.

3. Attention is scarce. How can marketing break the deadlock?

It can be seen that the above three problems are all objective phenomena that we cannot reverse. We can only adjust our own communication strategies and find ways to optimize marketing plans under such circumstances.

Generally speaking, when thinking about communication strategies, one must think about: media strategy and content strategy; let’s see how to adjust them.

1. Media Strategy

Apart from the link integration part, integrated marketing is all about making multiple touchpoints speak together, which has the greatest power. In terms of media selection, the principle is the same. We need to use multiple media touchpoints to target the same group of people to maximize exposure opportunities.

Multi-contact point surround, high frequency and high density coverage.

It is inevitable that media touchpoints are overlooked, so why don’t we try to surround them with multiple touchpoints so that consumers can see them in various media touchpoints in their lives, and the high-frequency and high-density touchpoints make it difficult for consumers to ignore them. For example: during the period when Guazi was investing heavily in used cars, you would have found that there were ads in the waiting hall when you were on the bus, elevator ads when you arrived at the company, elevator ads in the community when you got home from get off work, and patch ads when you watched videos before going to bed, etc. They appeared in your life with high density in a short period of time, and it was difficult for you not to notice them. The same is true for Luckin Coffee, with WeChat Moments LBS + Focus Media elevator ads + stores, and dense and high-frequency touchpoints, you would always notice them.

We often talk about quantitative change to qualitative change. I think this is one of them. Although it is crude, it is very effective. When we place advertisements, we are always greedy and want to cover more people. In fact, the quantity is not enough and there is not even a splash. I made this mistake when I invested in offline advertising for the first time. I didn’t have much money but wanted to have a national influence. In the end, I paid the tuition fee in vain.

Of course, I cannot deny that this approach is very expensive. First of all, it is recommended to conduct a small-scale test in the early stage to ensure that your content and approach are effective, and do not go all in at once. Secondly, if the budget is insufficient, it is not recommended to touch offline advertising (this is just my personal opinion). The media environment of offline advertising is complex, and there are too many things that can distract consumers. For online advertising, at least consumers' attention is framed on the mobile phone screen. Even if they are not interested in you, they can always see you.

In addition to the media, let’s take a look at how we can adjust the content.

2. Content Strategy

Since consumers have limited attention span, we can think in two directions regarding content:

• Improve the attractiveness of content: capture consumers’ attention as much as possible;
• Improve the efficiency of information communication: make good use of every second of the user's attention.

How to increase the attractiveness of content?

1) The content is "relevant to me" and "conflicting": giving the audience a strong stimulus

How to quickly attract someone's attention? One is to call his name, and the other is to give him a strong stimulus (for example: a sudden roar in a quiet classroom).

The point of "related to me" is easy to understand and has been used a lot. People tend to pay attention to things that are related to themselves. Otherwise, how can there be "what you care about is the headline"? Various platforms are addictive; it is also because they all recommend things that are related to you and that you are interested in. When we do marketing, we generally lean in this direction, so I won't say much.

"Having a sense of conflict" is actually a way to make consumers feel strong stimulation. There are two ways to create a sense of conflict: one is "sensory conflict" and the other is "cognitive conflict". Both methods can effectively create a sense of conflict and attract the audience's attention.

Sensory conflict: This is mainly achieved through visual and auditory design. It is easy to understand by looking at Durex’s driving poster.

Cognitive conflict: In essence, you have broken the consumer's original cognition and formed a cognitive gap, such as: "Mimi Meng: I am ashamed to say that my assistant only earns 50,000 yuan a month", "One: Chinese people born in the 1990s have already started making wills", and the various joint models that dominated the screen in the first half of the year (the effect is now far less than in the first half of the year, and after consumers have seen more, the sense of conflict has gradually disappeared), etc.

2) Combine the purpose, adapt the scene and media: do not interrupt the audience's current goal

As mentioned earlier, users have specific purposes in specific scenarios (reading gossip and jokes on Weibo; reading news on headlines; checking updates on WeChat Moments; reading recommendations on Xiaohongshu, etc.); if you ignore the user's feelings and interrupt the audience's scenario goals, the audience will not only lose interest but may even feel disgusted.

Most people don’t like watching ads, but they are willing to stay for good content, so our content should blend in and feel like the content of this scene. For example, as advertising voice-overs, Mr. Ma’s advertising voice-overs on “U Can U Bibi” are more popular. As content implants, the advertising content of GQ Lab and “Scary Brains” will be popular.

Let’s take another example, how to market insurance products through different channels (just an example):

• Xiaohongshu: "How virtuous of you to help your husband with insurance!" ”, recommending the best products from a wife’s perspective.
• Headline: "Peking University Economist: 90% of Families Need Insurance", with news-like content to pave the way.
• Zhihu: "Why is buying insurance the best financial management? ”, use professional knowledge to answer questions and then guide you to the product.

How to improve the efficiency of information communication?

1) Refuse to be comprehensive and complex: Make the audience understand within 3 seconds

Attention is scarce, seize every glance and make good use of every second!

When marketing, many brands always feel that they have to write out all the value points, and the gameplay must be diverse to be interesting, etc.; but in fact, it is already so difficult to gain attention. It is even more difficult to get consumers to focus on understanding your content and remember so much information. Everyone hates complicated and messy things, and the same goes for marketing. Try to convey one message at a time and let consumers do only one thing at a time.

At the same time, in visual design, information communication always comes first, and the information hierarchy should be prioritized. Highlighting everything is the same as not highlighting anything, and don’t be overly obsessed with design aesthetics. First of all, ensure the efficient transmission of information. In many cases, large fonts and large logos are useful. In addition, the copy should speak human language. Don’t pile up words or create new words and concepts, unless it is really clever and interesting and users can understand it at a glance, otherwise users will have to spend brainpower to understand it.

2) Keep repeating, don’t innovate for the sake of innovation: cognition is accumulated over a long period of time

I am quite resistant to my boss telling me, wasn’t this information mentioned last month, wasn’t this gameplay used last month, etc. We all agree that a brand is built through long-term persistence, cognition is accumulated, and so is marketing.

Consumers have limited minds and attention spans, so it is really difficult for them to notice and remember every new thing that comes out. If a piece of information is effective, it must be reused. Otherwise, it would be equivalent to re-educating and re-establishing cognition every time, and wouldn’t the previous expenses be wasted?

The repetition mentioned here does not mean simply repeating a sentence 800 times or using a set of materials 800 times, but there are two points: repeated communication with the target audience and repeated brand core KM.

For example: Nike’s advertisements are constantly changing, but the core sports spirit of “Just do it” has not changed; Tmall’s Double Eleven has innovative ways of doing things every year, but the core is still a promotional carnival, which has not changed.

IV. Conclusion

1. Why does marketing fail?

Failure to capture consumer attention is one of the culprits.

Consumer attention is the hard currency of communication. I personally believe that an important reason why traffic is becoming more and more expensive is because consumer attention is becoming increasingly difficult to obtain. Therefore, learning how to capture consumer attention is a compulsory course for every marketer.

2. Where is consumer attention going?

Starting from the communication scenario (under what circumstances consumers receive information), media carrier (the medium that carries marketing content), and communication content (specific marketing content):

• [Scenario] Conflicting goals: interrupting the audience's current goal, and the audience is not interested;
• 【Media】Media Ignorance: The media is ignored by consumers and the reach is ineffective;
• 【Content】The content is dull: it is not surprising after seeing it so often, and it is difficult to be interested without novelty;

3. Attention is scarce. How to break the deadlock?

1) Media strategy: multi-touchpoint surround, high frequency and high density coverage.

2) Content Strategy:

• [Increase the attractiveness of content] The content is "relevant to me" and "conflicting": giving the audience a strong stimulus;
• [Increase the attractiveness of content] Combine the purpose, adapt the scene and the medium: do not interrupt the audience's current goal;
• [Improve information communication efficiency] Avoid being too comprehensive or too complex to understand: Make the audience understand within 3 seconds;
• [Improve the efficiency of information communication] Keep repeating what you say, and don’t innovate for the sake of innovation: cognition is accumulated over a long period of time.

The above only represents my own opinion. I hope it helps you and worth your time. Thank you.

Author: Sanjin

Source: Sanjin Classmates