Attention will be King in the death of Content

I argue that the only focus of marketing people in the next couple of years will need to be how to navigate and value our audience’s attention. To promise that we won't waste it. People are now extremely protective of their attention. Waste it at your peril.

A recently conducted a survey found that most of your content is forgotten incredibly quickly, because it’s not relevant, it disrupts them and they are not motivated. So we have no chance to be remembered in the future at that all-important purchase decision moment. There is an all-out war on people’s attention and Content might be in it's final death throes if we're not careful.

Take Facebook as just one example. It excels at getting your attention. That’s the cost of being a Facebook user – you’re attention. Because if you are on Facebook then your clicking on ads and sharing content to get others attention. A huge range of notification types and styles permeate all Facebook platforms (as well as Instagram etc. etc.) that do their job well. That’s just Facebook.

We touch our phone hundreds if not thousands of time a day. It’s no wonder that people are starting to manage their notifications much more aggressive manner. Just go google search “turn off notification” and see how many results there are!

The way to navigate this next couple of years, I think, will have a lot to do with building trust. That your audiences will trust you not to waste their time. One of the best ways to do that is through story. Story, done properly, forces us to be authentic.

The brands who understand this have excelled at it for a long time. My personal favourite is Nike. They are probably the best storytellers on the planet. You will never see them wasting your attention with product features and benefits. Never. Not once. All of their focus goes into inspiring you. Of showing that you too can be a great athlete. They do this by honouring athletics and great athletes.

I’m a runner. That’s one of my passions for decades now. If Nike ever asks me for my attention, I will see something like this:

Or maybe I will see a video like this.

All about not wasting my attention. No ask. No selling. Just inspiration. Even when I go to a Nike store, the store window will normally still be talking about inspiration.

Once I walk inside the store, then it all changes. Then the sales bit happens. But the sole purpose of person in the store is help me overcome my fear. Fear of making a wrong purchase decision or my fear or spending so much on a pair on Nike’s. They are not sales people but knowledgeable teachers when it comes to how I run, which shoes will work best

A lot can be learned from Nike.