Marketing pains #2: Fragmentation — the shrinking of attention spans
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.
This is a shift of evolutionary significance, as we have all but lost one of humankind’s key states — boredom has quietly disappeared in the last few decades. Standing in a queue, waiting at a red light, standing in the lift, waiting for your food or a train or a plane, waiting for anything — used to be dead time. Now we plug into the world we have at our fingertips. With this, the opportunity cost of time has shrunk into seconds. There is now anxiety if we let a few seconds pass unfilled. It’s telling that most platform’s primary experience is called a “feed”.
As smaller moments become media consumption opportunities — media portions shrink accordingly. New platforms offer smaller and smaller portions at a faster pace, as has been the case from TV to YouTube to Facebook to Snapchat and TikTok. We don’t seem to replace older media with new faster ones but layer them in — making the average pace faster and portion smaller.
Digital media platforms have quickly evolved to exploit one of our fundamental drives. Behavioral psychology increasingly paints a picture of how strongly we’re wired for the dopamine rewards that come from discovery. Media and information consumption fit perfectly into this. It’s like a drug — that we have constant and unlimited access to.
People using their phones are often compared to zombies. In just about any setting these days you can spot people who aren’t present — they’re glued to their phones.
A great paradox of the hyper-connected age is that it’s becoming harder to really connect with people. Advertisers now have to overcome a chronically distracted audience.
Distracted walking leads to thousands of injuries a year and many fatalities. If people on phones are literally distracted to the point that they don’t notice deadly danger — then ads don’t pose a great threat.
People become bored and disinterested more quickly now, not only on skippable digital media but everywhere. The high reward rate of digital media has recalibrated the opportunity cost of time. Cinema going is in decline across developed markets. 2 hours has become an eternity, especially for youngsters who spend proportionally more time on their phones and live by that pace.
As a rule of thumb, things that require multiple hours of attention are getting less attention. In developed markets, flagship TV events like The Superbowl, The Olympics and The Academy Awards all show long-term audience decline. When ratings records are broken now, they’re record lows.
Binge-watching of series is an exception to this. One could argue that the writing style has shifted from following a singular big story arch to following multi-layered, complex stories, often containing numerous smaller stories. One aspect of binge-watching that is certain though, is that it is a substitute for traditional TV and vastly reduces the number of ads those audiences watch.
With the shortening of attention spans in general — tastes shift too. The medium is the message… Different formats suit certain messages. Social media tends to promote subjects that can land quickly and don’t rely much on nuance.
Unfortunately, quickening ads from 30 seconds to just a few seconds doesn’t suit what brands need to say. Brands need to politely interrupt what you’re doing to sell themselves. When this is done in 3 seconds it becomes very solicitous and flat — which tends to backfire with an already distracted audience.
A vicious cycle self perpetuates: more noise makes audiences tune out more; makes brands try to compress their messages into more spaces; makes more noise.
The proliferation and interconnectivity of media has given brands greater access to the ocean of attention, but its become a sea of shrinking fragments, where advertisers increasingly struggle to make personal connections.
Whether through traditional or digital media — marketers now have less time to make an impression.
Read more of the Marketing Pains series:
- What’s really causing these — Marketing Pains?
- #1: Transparency — the magic killer
- #2: Fragmentation — the shrinking of attention spans
- #3: Skippability — the democratization of attention
- #4: Sharing — the gearing of collective attention
