RELEVANCE BUILDS REACH

In the attention economy brands are hungry for our attention.

There is a war for attention and success is benchmarked with proxy metrics like  ‘seconds’ and 'views' and 'reach'. But in chasing these metrics brands are struggling to win - an average view time for digital ads is 1.7 seconds while only 20% of digital ads are viewed beyond 2 seconds. The low figures are worrisome given that the digital advertising investment is upwards of $220 billion in 2017. This results in a continuous downward spiral where brands are creating more ads targeting wider audiences for higher reach, consumers responding to spam by using ad blocking software, leading to less time spent and so on. 

Here's an alternative way to think - action not attention, relevance and not reach is the goal. It does not matter if you are seen for 2, 30 or 300 seconds or if you have a 80%+ reach amongst a broad demographic if there is no relevant value exchange offered and no significant action taken after.  

A blind race for reach as a substitute for relevance will not solve the problem. Building relevance is a long term exercise for a brand. It involves understanding the consumer, your brand, the context of the interaction and the context of conversion.
 
a. Consumer : Segmenting consumers based on observed behaviors, their need states, understanding their consumer journeys and the ‘why’ within their journey, their core motivations based on life-stage/ geography and culture, their category involvement and interaction is step 1. Small + Deep Data is useful here. Know 10 consumers deeply Vs a faceless database of 1000 consumers.
 
b. Brand : The brands values (purpose), its value proposition that’s scalable, its role within culture and how will it present itself to its different constituents (act, voice, image, text).
 
c. Context of Interaction : For each consumer segment what are the ideal trigger moments, where and when do they occur ? Also, how do the segments want to be engaged in their consumer journey ? 
 
d. Context of Conversion : Breaking down conversion as the last mile to buy/ repurchase we can see that it involves acquisition-behaviors-outcomes all of which preceed purchase. Visiting your website (acquisition), viewing your video (behavior) or subscribing to your newsletter (outcome) are not purchases per se but meant to predict future purchase with differing probability.
 
This 4 step exercise is the beginning of building brand relevance. Done with discipline you will spend less money in chasing ‘seconds’ and more time in developing relevant brand experiences that convert.

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