Is marketing’s reliance on social media compromising our ability to capture attention in the future?
Are we sustainably tapping into people’s attention by aligning with social media platforms or could we be putting our future marketing efforts at risk? Rebecca den Braber asks the question.
For as long as advertising has existed, marketers have been trying new and innovative ways to capture people’s attention. And they’re not alone. Media platforms have been doing the same thing tweaking ad formats, length and algorithms to work out exactly how to grab and hold people’s attention. With the proliferation of data, this has become an even more exact science.
Given that, it makes sense for advertisers to align with platforms with the best ability to capture people’s attention. But what if those finely tuned concentration-stealing platforms are actually messing with people’s attention to the point where one day, brands won’t be able to get through to anyone, no matter how hard they try?
That’s the argument of British author Johann Hari whose latest book Stolen Focus explains why so many of us are struggling to pay attention these days.
