What happens when media becomes interactive and skippable? Messages and stories get compressed and sweetened. To deliver a punchline or a completed idea, everything shrinks when the audience’s attention becomes more fickle. — [Part of the series: Marketing Pains ] When we were kids we dreamed of being able to fast-forward a live TV stream. It’s obviously impossible, yet this is essentially what digital feeds and on-demand video do. What we never dreamed, was how this would change the viewing material.

Constant access to media has turned us into compulsive snackers and triggered a cycle of shorter attention bursts, shorter media portions, increased tempo, quicker payoff and algorithmic optimization. — [Part of the series: Marketing Pains ] Media consumption used to have a time and a place. Phones have changed that. We now carry portable, interactive TV sets, radios and readers with us everywhere we go. Media blankets every part of our lives now.

Brands have forever traded in magic, some more than others, but the very evolution of brand building has been to create a perception of differentiation that is greater than the reality. Before Google, claims were hard to verify and audiences’ default position was to believe. — [Part of the series: Marketing Pains ] Products in categories like soaps are mostly very similar, almost identical, but top manufacturers have traditionally invested heavily in their brands to stand apart. This has allowed the leaders to charge a premium, to drive loyalty and growth their market share.

The ad industry’s big debate is a false dichotomy. The growing tension between digital evangelists and creative purists is a distraction that only eludes to the underlying challenges that marketers now face. — [Part of the series: Marketing Pains ] The tectonic plates of attention and behavior have shifted and the advertising industry is trying to rationalize its new reality. Everything has changed, get on board or be left behind. It’s data, measurement, optimization, automation, machine learning and tech stacks.

The entertainment industry’s best attempt at a mobile video renaissance will face daunting behavioral hurdles. — People spend more than three hours a day on their phones now. Rather than trying to get audiences off their phones and back into cinemas, Jeffrey Katzenberg’s Quibi aims to channel cinema caliber filmmakers, including Steven Spielberg, into quick bites, made for phones. To successfully create a new high-quality mobile…

As social media platforms grow stronger they grow weaker too. This will eventually open the way for a meaningful alternative to Facebook. — Despite waves of privacy concerns, Facebook has a powerful grip on us all. The ubiquity of the platform and the time invested in building connections deters people from leaving and in turn deters would-be rivals from building alternative platforms. Their scale and success has us locked in. This success has an Achilles heel though — and it’s your mom.

Facebook is unstoppable — yet dying. Data, privacy, foreign actors and government scrutiny are all challenges, but manageable. One thing however seals their fate: how they make money. The curse of ad revenue guarantees the death of any media platform. It’s just a matter of time. Why do media platforms…

Why would a god descend from the heavens to participate in the turmoil of politics? It wasn’t to ‘stand for something’ as a brand, it’s because large scale attention can no longer be bought. Technology has made our attention discretionary and the world skippable. Brands can no longer just buy the massive amounts of cheap, forced attention they are used to. The effectiveness of controversy in gaining attention has changed the outcome of elections and it’s starting to change the nature of marketing too.

Complex ideas take time — and we no longer have any. Shrinking attention is changing the kinds of stories we can tell. This has already dumbed down our entertainment. We could be next. — Deep thought may be our defining capacity as a species. Like any capacity, it can get stronger with practice or weaker with neglect. The stories we tell and ideas we give our attention to, shape our collective thoughts and minds.