“Hey, you never guess what, I was on this website today and they told me that they were one of the leaders in their industry. Seriously. And guess what else..not only do they deliver great results, get this, they had a passion for what they did too!” Said nobody. Ever.
When our greatest constraint was technology…
I leapt straight into the world of Digital Marketing in 1996. Back then our job was to think global. For the first time the online radio-controlled car shop could welcome a collector from Japan and allow them to browse there store, as we used to term it ‘virtually’. In fact, just to prove the point we’d have a gif of a spinning globe next to our brand name.
The global focus. We could now sit behind our computers and present ourselves far bigger than we really were. That’s what, we believed, our audiences wanted – virtual size was everything. The Internet gold rush was on. The barriers to the global marketplace were removed.
Our online marketing prowess was rather limited back in 1996. Animated dogs chasing the postman to prove we had email capabilities were the boundary. Even with technology limitation we still had the ability to entertain. Who’d have thought your CD drive would double as a Coke can holder? or, the 3 frogs sat on lilies croaking ‘Bud’ ‘wise’ ‘errrrrr.’ could accompany your day as a screensaver?
Have marketers forgotten the need to entertain?
2016, we’re accustomed to our global reach. Now, we talk with our audience rather than at our audience. However, we suffer from platform proliferation. We want to spread our message afar, but, due to resource, we paint our message too thinly.
We have Pinterest. Twitter. Facebook. Vine. Instagram. Blogs. Plus, we have to cater for our core audience through our website content, email and the good old marketing communication methods. Let’s not forget video. The constraints of technology are lifted, but why are our marketing messages becoming more and more mundane?
Money doesn’t buy entertainment
The problem lies in convention. Marketers inherit the campaigns of their predecessors. Or, marketers rely upon the tried and trusted methods of their prior roles. Let’s face it, that’s what got us the job in the first place, right?
We have budgets to allocate and spend. It’s easy to continue spending on Adwords when a precedent has been set that allows us to ‘believe’ that channel works. It takes courage to step back and ask ‘how can we break convention?’
Whilst we implement new ways to grab our audience’s attention. Responsive design websites. Parallax-coded homepages. Even, God forbid, homepage carousels. We forget to consider what holds our audience’s attention.
Marketings intention
“Marketing is Storytelling“ says Seth Godin. Arianna Huffington believes that “People think in stories, not statistics, and marketers need to be master storytellers”.
By it’s very definition, stories are told ‘for entertainment purposes’. Therefore, surely our job, as marketers, is to entertain? We sometimes forget our identifying role as we get caught up contemplating the next big shiny marketing toy. Our role is often entwined with our comrades in sales. Again, we fixate on grabbing attention rather than holding attention. When you can hold your audience’s attention, that’s a nice place to be.
This isn’t entertainment for the masses or virility.
You can entertain me by reciting the history of your widget-manufacturing plant in Dudley. It’s the way you tell the story. You can hold my attention by talking through the process that places a microchip into your new wonderful device. It’s the way that you tell that story.
The storytelling movement isn’t about gimmick it’s about soul. It’s about enriching, educating and entertaining our audience.
The encore
You want more? Okay, one last point…. you’re dealing with people. We understand what makes people tick. It’s how we survive. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, you can entertain. Why? Because, you’re communicating with people. We love to be entertained. It’s in our genes. Any subject can entertain. Want proof? 6.8m Brits watch Countryfile on a Sunday. Need I say more?
So forget, for the moment, the new page you’re uploading to your website, or the new ad you’re activating on Adwords. The attention grabbers. Forget them. Cast your focus in the direction of holding that attention. That’s entertainment.
Written By:
