Without Attention, there is No Brand.

With a time-starved audience and attention-starved brands fighting for a few seconds of consideration, does bringing an overt brand message to the forefront really matter? Probably not when paid intrusion and actual attention become closer to mutually exclusive. Great content doesn't matter for shit if your audience is too busy making a sandwich to care.

We already know that the audience won’t trust our ads. Does it make a difference how many times you say that "we make whites the whitest" or "every kiss begins with kay" or any other questionable statement of position. If no one is likely to believe you, why waste your time saying it when you could be spending your money showing it.

Which brings us back to content. Rather than spend your time attempting to prove bullshit, you can find out what your audience likes, and work to be that, to make them feel understood or listened to. Take these "ads" from Zach Galifianakis, Tim and Eric commissioned by Absolut.

Have I watched those and thought "hmmm, Absolut is the smoothest vodka," or "Absolut is so clear, it must be good," or whatever else you may be able to say about the generic "vodka" brand? Well no, but even if they did set out to make me believe that, I probably wouldn't have given them the pleasure of my time.

Same goes for this Levis viral. There is no logo, no obvious branding message. And if there were, I doubt if it'd have 2.4+ million views on YouTube alone.

The same could be said for Cadbury’s Gorilla ad, or the Diet Coke/Mentos experiment (though not brand created). They didn't waste time proving out a positioning that probably wouldn't have been believed or watched.

I’m not sure where exactly this leaves us. It isn’t time for us to throw out things like marketplace positioning, but we need to prove it in different places. I doubt if television ad breaks are the place for a rational sale anymore. It’s just easier to be whatever you would have said you are. Google didn’t prove their mission statement by making it a tagline. They just went out and did it. And for anyone that says that doesn’t work for companies like yours, you’re probably just making excuses.

Comments

[captain flummox]

I do think that too many advertisers still operate on the theory that a lie repeated often enough becomes the truth, even though it's no longer easy to buy that kind of critical mass in national broadcast. And as you suggest, now we're at the point where it might be easier and even cheaper to actually deliver the goods. The examples here seem more to me like the patron of the (comedic) arts model, ingratiating oneself to the masses by sponsoring entertainment. To the extent that these kinds of things work, I think it's largely because they're pulled instead of pushed. I mean, if they were delivered intrusively, interrupting my attempts to figure out how the writers of Lost are going to dig out of their current hole, I'd be just as irritated. But if a marketer has a believable story to tell, I want to know about it -- from somewhere, whether I agree with them or not.

[Gavin Heaton]

Awesome post, Paul. Hits me like a molotov cocktail. The problem is, is that it's easy to make excuses when the figures back up the story you want to tell. So while we continue to believe that the reach of a TVC delivers on our objectives, despite the fact that the audience have already moved their attention somewhere else, then we have only ourselves to blame.

[Paul Soldera]

Hey Paul, interesting thoughts. The thing I keep coming across though is that people don't mind advertising - let me caveat that, good advertising. Ads that are interesting/funny/compelling, whether they are on TV and you happen to catch them, or served up on youtube (branded or not). With tagline, without tagline. It doesn't matter. BUT, people HATE 'advertising' - in all forms, in all contexts, and don't trust a thing companies have to say. I think the Levis and Cadbury's spots are a reaction to this contradiction. Kind of like saying "it's not really an ad, so don't bust our balls if you don't like it, but if you do, hey yeah, those are our jeans! Cool aye!"

The Google comparison is a good one. All Google products are released as 'beta'. That's just like releasing a non-ad - "This is some of the stuff we're working on, don't bust our balls if you don't like it, it's beta ffs. But if you do, hey cool!".

Both situations completely remove the rational argument, the USP, the hard sell. It's almost an understated authenticity. So what do you call this? Authentic branding? And by calling it anything, does that suddenly make it all bullshit?

[Paul McEnany]

CF- It is a lot like the sponsorship model for sure. I guess, all things being equal as far as price to the extent I cared about it, taste to the extent I knew about it, etc., I'd probably buy the vodka that "likes" the same sort of stuff I like. I guess the question is, is it as effective as just repeating the brand name over and over until it's the first thing you think of...

Gavin- And to add to that, we get back to this idea of repetition of the same as the factor that generates sales instead of using the same or multiple media to extend a larger brand story. There's far too much spouting off about 360 degree marketing as if keeping everything the same color somehow equals loyalty. I guess it really depends on objective at the end of the day, but there's still a huge lag in layered storytelling.

Paul- Good point. Although even if it is a great ad, it's still less likely to be seen only because of the bullshit crap that surrounds it. People just tend to get up or shut down when the ad break hits. Google has been hinting at ad pricing based on effectiveness, though, which could either be really good or really bad. Guess we'll see. There's also something to be said about the youtube-izing of commercials, as well. Fewer eyeballs on TV, but many more engaged eyeballs online, so it all evens out.

Either way, it's all changing really fast now. It'll be fun to see how it tilts.