Why you need a purpose-driven brand: the info glut
This is the first in a series that details the key factors that have given rise to the need to nurture a purpose-driven brand.
There is an ever-growing number of things that call for our attention. From the phone screen to the computer screen to the TV screen, texts, alerts, email, ads and more vie for our attention. In the book Big Audacious Meaning – Unleashing Your Purpose-Driven Story, I detail this tsunami of information that assaults us daily. As an example, a USC Marshall School of Business research study estimated that the average consumer has 74 gigabytes or 9 DVDs worth of data sent to them on an average day. And that's from a study that's a few years old.
How the torrent of information has affected us
With so many things jockeying for our consideration, we find ourselves becoming ever more selective with what we pay attention to. "Paying" attention is an apt description. We have a finite supply of energy. When we give our attention to something, we have to withdraw from that finite supply. Literally spending energy.
From Big Audacious Meaning:
"This massive amount of information creates a much larger cognitive load for all of us. McGill University psychology professor Daniel Levitin illustrates the point for us in his book, The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload. “In 1976, there were 9,000 products in the average grocery store, and now it’s ballooned to 40,000 products. And yet most of us can get almost all our shopping done in just 150 items, so you’re having to ignore tens of thousands of items every time you go shopping,” says Levitin."
Out of sheer self-preservation, we have become miserly with our attention. We have learned to quickly assess what we encounter and decide whether it is worth investing our time in.
What this means for brands
Attention is at a premium. Brands can no longer assume they have you and I engaged. Yes your commercial is running on my TV screen. But I'm not watching. I'm on my phone. And maybe even my iPad at the same time.
So unless you are communicating something incredibly relevant and meaningful to me, you're just white noise.
In the old days (pre-internet), you could rely on a somewhat predictable amount of engagement by throwing together a serviceable message and putting a sufficient media buy behind it. Thump people with a message enough times and you'd see some results.
Today, that approach just doesn't yield the same results (although there are some that still try). As I mentioned, we divert our attention to the second screen. Or the third screen we have in front of us. Or we hit the skip button. Or we change the channel to any of the gazillion other channels we have available to us. Or we pause the commercial to get up and get a drink and when we return, we fast forward through all the commercials.
We have more choices and options which allow us to sidestep your message. So what can you do?
You can become more meaningful and relevant to us.
The power of a purpose-driven brand
Today, we want don't want to simply buy products and services. We want to buy into what those products and services stand for. The brands that understand this are the ones that get that closely-guarded attention I mentioned.
So what does your brand stand for? What difference do you make in a life, a community, or even the world? In other words, what is your Big Audacious Meaning? Clarify it. Because when you find the purpose your brand can embrace, you find that thing that has the power to naturally draw those you hope to serve to your brand. The thing that earns their attention. That thing that helps you separate from the glut of information. And become unforgettable.