Top 3 Marketing Considerations, Moments, Mediums & The Mind

Gone are the days of captive audiences so engrossed and compliant by the latest technology that they obediently remain transfixed on advertising in anticipation of the spellbinding entertainment that awaits. Today, the willingness to tolerate delays in gratification, much less interruptions, is so low that feelings of frustration are on a hair trigger. She wants “it” now! It’s our job to figure out what “it” is and how best to deliver “it”. In a multi-channel, multi-device and multi-media world this can be a complex task.

According to McKinsey, 50% of consumer interactions now happen during a multi-channel, multi-event journey. Meaning that brands today are built above the line, below the line and everywhere in between. More touch-points can mean more consumer tension points but also more opportunities for brands to stand apart as they smooth the path to purchase.

Organizations that adopt a more granular approach to connecting with consumers on a moment to moment basis are solving multiple consumer needs and building brand equity at every turn. Therefore, it’s not surprising that orchestrating meaningful messaging across online and offline touch-points is a top concern for nearly half of all CMO’s according to Gartner. The CMO Council reports that 55% of organizations are working on systems to extend marketing’s view of the consumer to include insights from all interaction points along the consumer journey. Forbes reinforces the importance of this approach by indicating that leaders in data-driven marketing are more likely to report achieving 6X more competitive advantage in increasing profitability largely through consumer retention.

Purchase journey data is being used by modern marketers to unearth searing target audience insights that are the basis of consumer journey maps. These maps plot the unique and predictable tension points as well as the salient moments of delight that brands should address across the path to purchase. Ultimately, practitioners of this approach come to understand what she is thinking, feeling and doing during what can be a circuitous brand experience. Messages are customized for the moment and the medium in which they are intended to be received. According to Gartner, most CMO’s claim that maximizing value from journey maps is a top priority in 2020.

Top brands realize that customizing for the moment and the medium relies on an understanding of the consumer mind that resides in the digital age.

In his book, “The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains”, Nicholas Carr writes that the digital age, as with previous periods of massive technological change, has rewired our brains. Carr writes that in the long run, the medium’s content matters less than the medium itself in influencing how we think and act. The effects of technology alter patterns of perception, steadily and without any resistance. We can be too busy being dazzled by the program to notice what’s happening in our heads. As networked computers have shrunk to the size of smartphones and tablets, the feast of convenient information has become a movable one, available anytime and anywhere. It’s in our homes, our offices, our cars, our classrooms, our pockets and our bathrooms. Even people who are wary of the internet’s ever expanding influence rarely allow their concerns to get in the way of their use and enjoyment of the technology.

Carr continues by saying that many of us sense that our minds are changing. For some, this can be felt most strongly when reading. You may feel that it used to be easy to immerse yourself in a book or lengthy article. Now, maybe you find yourself fidgety, craving for something else to do. The deep reading that used to come naturally can be a struggle. It just so happens that this has occurred as we spend more and more time online. A few google searches and clicks on hyperlinks reveal the information and gratification that we are after. For many people, most banking, shopping, corresponding and scheduling happen online. Even when not working on specific tasks, we are likely to be scanning headlines, following Facebook updates, downloading music, watching video streams or just bouncing from link to link. There are many advantages to having immediate access to such a rich and easily accessible store of data. However, it appears that the internet seems to be chipping away at our capacity for concentration, contemplation and patience. We want what we want when we want it. We don’t want to dig for the answer. If the solution appears before we know we have a problem, all the better.

Whether online or not we expect to take in all information the way the net distributes it, in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Since immediate gratification has become our default, we prefer mediums that enable us to scan short passages of text, skim through content, scroll pictures and watch videos in short bursts.

At the Brand Storytelling Summit in Utah last month, top brands revealed that they are acutely aware of this phenomenon. Marketing leaders know how to seed their messages in the minds of modern era consumers. They develop content that is crafted for specific mediums instead of trying to trim, squeeze, crimp, and curl TV commercials through the path to purchase. Brands like Frito-Lay, Levi’s, HP and National Geographic demonstrated how they are developing long-form stories that are produced to come to life in TV ads as well as in quick, resonating visual bursts of content. This approach motivates behavior change across channels without losing the broader brand narrative. Frito-Lay shined a light on how they used a variety of touch-points including in-store packaging, social video and augmented reality to concisely seed their mission of spreading joy, from moment to moment, in the minds of millennial consumers. Frito-Lay delivered their story in bite sized pieces of tantalizing fun, threaded together with meaning in the form of an Operation Smile partnership. “Insta-worthy” smile packaging was developed to capture the few available drops of shopper attention as well as catalyze thumb stopping user generated content. Video shorts revealed the “feel-good” stories behind the smiles of the people featured on the packages. These videos were instantly accessible through an on pack augmented reality experience.

In the modern era, brands need to unearth the most important moments to serve their consumers. Messages must be crafted for the modern mind and carried through well-orchestrated mediums across the path to purchase. Neglecting these critical factors dissipates brand value under the onslaught of competing messages, withering consumer attention and burgeoning frustration.

 Sources: McKinsey & Co. “From Touch-points To Journeys, Seeing the World as Consumers Do.”, CMO Council “Operational Data Gaps Compromise Customer Experience”, Gartner “2020 CMO Top Concerns”, Forbes “Data Driven and Digital Savvy, The Rise of the New Marketing Organization”