You have 1.3 seconds.
One. point. three.
That’s the length of Gen Z’s attention span according to a new global study.
The good news is you’ll get a few seconds more with older generations.
To clarify, this is about active attention spans regarding advertising.
But advertising is a form of messaging. A sliver of storytelling.
And it either grabs one’s attention or it doesn’t. It’s memorable or it’s not.
This is an age-old challenge for advertisers and marketers: How to grab that fast-fleeting attention for a few seconds. And then a few more. The stakes have been raised and there is pressure-cooked dilemma of attention deficit driven by social media scrolling.
But don’t worry. Your marketing team will creatively crack the code.
You’ve got bigger fish to fry. Like answering this question:
What will we say once we have their attention?
More than two decades of asking company leaders what they do, why they do it, why people should choose their product/service – and then asking their people the same question – and it’s pretty clear most orgs don’t have clear-cut answers.
Vague ones? Yes.
Succinct and consistent? Rarely.
1.3 seconds of cool may be just that — cool.
What it cannot do is convey your complex message, even when distilled to something simple.
However, creativity can point to your story that connects emotionally to an audience.
Of course you know your story, right?
The one your team knows inside and out?
That conveys your unique value and what you bring to the market?
That underscores why people – employees and customers alike – are all in on what you do?
Yes? Vaguely?
This takes more than 1.3 seconds.
So breathe.
And let your creative team be creative when it comes to grabbing attention.
Don’t let an audience attention deficit lead your business into a content deficit.
You still need to nail your story. Know your why. Clarify what makes you worth their time.
Remember that old-school metric about how an audience needs to see/hear your message nine times for before truly acknowledging it for the first time?
The same is true in a generation of scrollers.
Except today it’s going to take a lot more than nine times.
But once you grab their attention, it’s game on.
To keep their attention you need to make a meaningful connection.
And in case you need reminded, that is why your company exists in the first place.