Attention!(How to Interrupt, Yell, Whisper, and Touch Consumers)

Citation

Chamberlin, D.P. (2001), "Attention!(How to Interrupt, Yell, Whisper, and Touch Consumers)", Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 18 No. 4, pp. 368-376. https://doi.org/10.1108/jcm.2001.18.4.368.2

May I have your attention, please? People, PLEASE? HEY!!!

Yes, I know you have lots to do. But isn’t this always the way? Isn’t it true even if you are relaxing before the TV, mindlessly watching some inane, sex‐laden sitcom? Aha!That’s exactly Ken Sacharin’s point in his new book, Attention!(How to Interrupt, Yell, Whisper, and Touch Consumers)…: today’s advertising competes for attention not only with both the program content of the medium, be it radio, TV, or the Internet and with its commercials, but also with our own penchant for tuning out and selectively forgetting. Day‐after recall was once a primary measurement of “commercial effectiveness,” but hear this: the percentage of adult viewers who could name one or more brands advertised in a TV program they had just watched (not even day‐after!) has dropped steadily from 34 per cent in 1965 to 8 per cent in 1990 – the last time the study was repeated. What may it be today – 2 per cent at best? Ouch!

So Sacharin spends part I convincing us the power of marketing is eroding from lack of attention. He uses a Maslow’s hierarchy of needs analog, called “brands hierarchy of needs,” to illustrate his point: you will never ever get to customer understanding, esteem or brand loyalty if you haven’t achieved the first level need, attention. In a too‐true‐to‐be‐good passage, he describes the persuasion physics approach of yesteryear with a vignette from a P&G copy meeting (was he actually there in my brand’s meetings with my agency?). While not contending that we should toss persuasion physics out, he stumps for adding attention mechanics to the mix.

Part II,“ Getting attention in a crowded room: the techniques of attention mechanics”, is the heart of the book. These 12 short and highly readable chapters employ the analogy of being noticed in a crowded meeting room to explain his principles of getting attention to your advertising. The chapters cover things you might do to get attention and ties each to an advertising technique. He covers one’s entrance into the room (i.e. being noticed for a spectacular entrance); the idea of polite interruption into someone else’s already established conversation (analogous to piercing the viewer’s preoccupation); paying to get attention (I got a little lost in the social end of this analog – can’t remember ever paying someone to let me converse with them, except maybe indirectly our minister); being brief (short, punchy commercials); occasional yelling (perhaps not at your mother‐in‐law’s wake); whisper (that sure gets one’s attention in social situations – but isn’t a “whispered” commercial that much easier to ignore?); be different (I think this one is a road fraught with potholes; I see far too many commercials that sure are different, and I haven’t the least idea what they’re selling!); touch (loved this one for its analogous applicability!); tell a story (this one, too!); mingle analogy (just a little far‐fetched); and network (yes!). He ends the section with a thoughtful recipe for building a networked communications plan, including recommending using online banner advertisements that link to your Web site, or listing Web addresses and telephone numbers in TV, print, outdoor, and radio. He cites several innovative and avant garde linking strategies being used by other companies, such as Tranz‐send’s MediaMan, a hand‐held device which enables passersby to interact with outdoor signs, or Xenote’s bookmarking technology in iTag, a key‐chain sized device which enables users to push a button to mark the time of a radio or TV advertisment that interested them, then uploading them at leisure to digest their content or follow their links, in turn. The section also discusses a “solar system” of media, all linked to a Web site, with each medium carrying the part of your message for which it is best suited. IBM’s current e‐business campaign is used as an illustration.

Sacharin uses Part III of the book, a mere 20 pages, to tell us how to get started. He makes good use of matrices here, which go far to enlighten (and lighten) some pretty muddy writing. For example, one chart lists the attention‐getting strategies (remember the analogy of entering a crowded room?) of enter, interrupt (politely), be introduced, yell (occasionally), whisper, be different, find a quieter place, mingle, network, be brief, touch, tell a story, and (gasp!) pay for it, and then beside each matrix he outlines tools which might be useful in accomplishing each one of them. For example, “whispering” might take the form of minimalist advertisement content or curiosity‐arousing street theatre. He brings the argument full circle by comparing the mechanics of attention‐getting to those of persuasion physics, such as the copy principles laid down by David Ogilvy so many generations ago: open the first frame with a surprise; use the product name in the first ten seconds (can you remember when TV spots actually ran for ten seconds?), show the package, show the product in use, etc. He never completely buries these old P&G‐ish rules, but he snipes at them (“may tend to stifle innovation …”) and strives for at least peaceful coexistence between them and his attention mechanics. His penultimate chapter deals with measurement, and reads like one monstrous hedge against accountability, spoken like a true agency type. We should not have expected less.

This book is not your vacation‐time fun read. First, the writing is not blessed with overwhelming clarity – a little disorganization here, a little driving a tack with a sledge hammer there. And for those of us who practiced in a kinder, gentler era (in their 30s, even (gasp!) 60s!) the proposition, while feeling valid, makes us feel as if we’re being sold something blasphemous. But if his statistics are correct on viewers’ and readers’ extreme attention deficits today, then give the man his due – without getting the consumer’s attention, all the Olgilvy‐driven executions in the world won’t sell the product if nobody out there is listening.