As a society, our attention spans are increasingly shorter. We live in sound bites. Quick hits – short bursts of images. Fifteen second commercials have virtually replaced 30 seconds, (however nobody I know actually watches commercials anymore anyway). We get pre screened news feeds in our inbox when we boot our computers up and scan in seconds for news we can use. We are in the know quickly. We blog and tweet to hear interesting stories. Lists tell us how to do everything / anything.
But still we spend enormous internal time crafting individual strategies and singular new products and communications as if each of our results will live on through time. The reality is that the results of what you are working on will be at best a “sound bite” in the mind of our target. They find you in the store, see you in the catalog or on-line, spend less than a fraction of a second deciding if your offering makes sense and then likely scan you out. Your communication is a millisecond of someone’s life and therefore will likely not break through as a single message.
This isn’t a bad thing, but it may require a new thinking. Products, services, communications and all that the marketer works toward should be considered small pieces under a larger theme / stream of what a brand is and does. Our brand or service we have created needs to be fluid and flexible, Our goal is to make sure the brand story is relevant and consistent. Surprising, engaging and reinforcing our identity – but not focusing on any one thing for too long. Because tomorrow (or this afternoon) that individual bit is gone and no longer relevant.
