Thursday, August 27, 2015

When Will Marketers Talk About Attention, Not Impressions?


I came across a blog post from Gary Vaynerchuk this week that I've been waiting to share with you. His blog post covers a topic that he actually discusses quite frequently, the idea of attention rather than impressions.

The advertising/marketing community, or anyone that really knows what they're doing, for example a small business owner who manages their own PPC ads, knows that the system is flawed. They know that 10%, 20%, even up to 50% of their digital marketing budget is going to circle the toilet bowl; wasted due to improper reporting, fraud, and a variety of other flaws in the marketing/advertising ecosystem that we're too quick to sweep under the rug. Or as Gary says:

"The entire marketing world is obsessed with impressions. You might hear someone say "40,000 people saw this video." But the truth is, they didn't. They didn't because as soon as the ad came up in video form, they clicked away to a new tab to look at something they actually wanted to see. But they count as an impression. They count as "seeing it."
And he's right.

We're too quick to accept impressions as a industry wide metric because it allows us to keep reporting these massive numbers to our clients who in turn continue to pay us.

But we should be smarter than that. And people like Gary are smarter than that.

If you're video got viewed 1 million times, but no one watched more than 10% of it, you probably missed the mark with the creative.

We need to measure attention because the simple fact is attention (read as: time focused) has become our most precious commodity.

1) The way we spend our time 2) Who we spend it with...those are the two most important things that will determine the outcome of our lives.

And it's not like it's rocket science to get the attention data, it's sitting there for you in google your Google Analytics.

But before we get any deeper, the purpose of this particular post is to share Gary's article with you as well as my response, a comment on his site that I've taken a screen shot of and shared below.

Read: When Will Marketers Talk About Attention, Not Impressions?

My comment:



The reality is: The reason YouTube is such a success is because the content lives and dies by the sword of attention. People either watch your videos or they don't. If advertisers and marketers would approach their creative with the same intensity (mindset), they'd be more apt to produce higher quality work. Ultimately saving clients money in the long run while building a stronger brand (advertisements....shouldn't look like ads anymore). We see this happening already on the creative side with brands like Red Bull that just seem to get it. I mean, come on, they literally just show us dope clips from extreme sports athletes to sell us an energy drink that even THEY admit tastes horrible unless chilled to the perfect temperature. And we also see brands like Taco Bell extorting every last oz out of social media attention hotspots to further their cause. Taco Bell is disgusting. But I still like/respect the brand. I have no idea why. A little reminder that we don't think rationally 100% of the time. And that the correct use of media truly can sway the public.

Finally, if you're an entrepreneur or aspiring entrepreneur and you haven't seen this video....thank me later. Stop what you're doing or set aside 45 minutes this weekend for a life changing (SUPER REAL) one-way conversation with Gary Vaynerchuk.

Gary Vaynerchuk | USC Entrepreneur Talk | 2015


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