Marketers, that weird vibe you're feeling might be apathy.

I had a colleague ask me if I felt "it" the other day during a call. This is someone I have known for years and generally trust their instinct. When I thought about it I admitted yes, there is a weird vibe in the air. Not just from people in marketing but in general. We discussed how we noticed three very prevalent trends in society lately and all seemed interconnected.

1. A strong sense of self. - The first is a strong sense of self. But not in the sense of being self aware, as much as in the sense of valuing only what was important or considered a value to only them. Everything else was an inconvenience or offensive. As if people lately are almost looking for ways to be offended by anything. Being cut off in traffic, poor service at a restaurant, a sign with someone else personal beliefs on it, and more. It use to be we could have nativity scenes on the capital lawn during the holidays without it offending anyone. But now its as if the holidays will cease to exist except for the traditional time off to observe them, and even that is shrinking. We seem to be celebrating more holidays in a diverse fashion, but they seem to have less meaning other than time off work. Traditions are crumbling, the meaning of "peace on earth, good will towards men" that the holidays traditionally stood for is slowly fading because apparently we are being told that offends too many people. The principals that stands for offend certain groups. Everyone wants what they want the way they want it when they want it. In marketing we are moving more towards that type of mindset and being able to deliver campaigns that way. But with that also comes hurdles

2. A loss of  "the bigger picture". - I often tell my kids that there should always be a process going on in their heads. That often the thought process gets lost in  the first point above. Many times it seems the decision process gets no further than instant gratification or "is it fun? Will I enjoy it or will it make me happy? The do it." That is as far as the process goes. No care or worry about how the decision to do whatever it is may affect others, may cause problems in the future or affect their future. We have become a culture of instant gratification because we have been told over and over again not today pleasure because we are not promised a tomorrow, especially in todays world. So societies younger generations act based on that. They live in the moment for the experience, no matter what type of mess it may cause in the future, immediate or otherwise. They are missing one crucial step in the thought process "is it fun? Will I enjoy it? What could possibly go wrong, and how will it affect myself and others in the near and long term?" It is that crucial third step that most are missing these days when it comes to action in every day life. Marketers we see this too, but the process is a little different "Is it cool? Will it go viral? How will it impact the brand or the campaign image we are trying to build in the near or long term?" It is that third crucial question many miss. We see it again and again as in McDonalds response to Burger Kings challenge, VW's promise their cars were eco friendly, and more.

3. Apathy. - Because the crucial third question is missing, and many times instant gratification can come with strings attached or issues in the long term, this is causing apathy. The feeling that its not worth it. No matter what is done, someone will be offended, it will somehow cause harm to someone or something and no matter what is done it is going to face steep opposition or criticism, so it is better just to stay status quo and let others take the chance than to risk the possible backlash or failure  caused by large scale or even small scale criticism. Will social media making the world a giant fish bowl and our lives constantly being monitored and data collected on us, we begin to feel the worlds problems and our own mistakes and missteps are growing or the attention on them is growing. It begins to seem like problems are multiplying everywhere because of the volumes of tragedies, problems, anonymous attacks in comments in social media, and more that we see every day. The mindset of nothing matters and what if it did begins to infect everything. For marketing inaction against fraud and outside influences like the NSA spying on citizens at large have made working in marketings constant battle. How to get a message or campaign to people in the age of ad blockers, vaporware, privacy laws, increasing compliance requirements, audiences that are constantly on the move, attitudes towards consumerism that have changed and more make it an increasingly hostile environment. Budgets are dropping and no one seems to know how to fix it or care. Google juice flows freely, yet everyone else struggles for audience and eyes and then to prove that audience and those eyes were real. Even worse consumers want personalized content and ads according to recent data and are willing to give up some personal information like location and some of their personal browsing or purchase history if there is a return value in it, but they want to be able to shut everything else out. They want their advertising like their life where it lives in the moment and is highly personalized to their own tastes because everything else is potentially offensive.

The bottom line. - Apathy seems to be the strongest of the three and I can see why. How do we market to that? How as a society is it realistic to change the environment and ones surroundings at every given moment to make each individual happy and the experience rewarding while trying to please hundreds, or thousands, maybe even millions of other customers? Sure we can take down Christmas decorations so as not to offend other religious groups, but you do so at the risk of offending a large portion of the rest of society. So you do it with the hopes that that portion has become so weary and worn down apathy makes the number of those upset much smaller? You add hijab's to your list of fashion you offer as in the case of H&M at the risk of sparking a fairly explosive topic and possible backlash for your brand? While both racism and intolerance  have been shown to be a disaster, so is the notion we can please everyone all the time, and give way to every single personal outlook. While we embrace diversity in nearly every country on the globe, the notion we will be able to embrace every cultural preference and political belief without offending anyone is misguided.  We have become a global melting pot. The belief that I am going to leave my country in search of a better life somewhere else, but not have to expect life for me to change, is a problem in expectations. The same as with marketing these days. To expect to receive personalized content at the exact moment you want it, and for the advertiser to absolutely know your likes and dislikes by knowing as little as possible about you, while adding a exception experience and value, is a problem with expectations. To believe publishers will be able to do away with ads and still afford to provide quality content for free, without a subscription model, is a problem with realistic expectations. Even for Facebook which is basically a repository for content you the user creates for them and then they own the rights to it. There is one fact that has not changed much and that is in order to get, you have to give. If you are unable to give, then you must rely on the kindness of others. Perhaps that is the reason for the three issues above is that we have a problem with our current expectations and have a growing lack of kindness as a result of not getting what we expect in return. Marketing is working much the same way with consumers.

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Thoughts? Feedback? Feel free to engage each other here and keep this an open forum. Comment here so we can keep the conversation going. If you enjoyed this article please see my others at https://www.dhirubhai.net/today/post/articles/650596?trk=mp-reader-h

Need help? - Bryan Gissiner has been in Digital Advertising for over 20 years in everything from retail to Founding his own tier two ad network. Currently, he helps companies utilize the right mix of current advanced technologies and marketing to outperform all of the other available alternative solutions in their target markets. He is a regular contributor on LinkedIn, with a large following of other experts from a number of different areas.

Bryan Gissiner has worked on both the publisher and advertiser side helping them to find ways to save budget and increase return on those budgets, often making them 2-3x more successful.

Connect with me! - , please go to www.dhirubhai.net/in/bryangiss, @bryangiss on twitter or contact directly [email protected] and send me an invite with specific requests, to discuss how he can bring his experience to add value to your company and help it continue to grow revenue and ROI.