Marketing for Consumers with a Short Attention Span

Today’s consumers have an extremely short attention span. The title of this post is technically too long for modern consumers - to make a point, obviously.

According to medical research, over the last 20 years, the average attention span has dropped from 2 1/2 minutes to just 45 seconds. Our smartphones and technology are decreasing our attention span. Consumers are inundated by information and it’s changing their behavior across all industries. As marketers, once we learn about our customers, we adapt our practices to match their behavior and potentially influence it. Knowing that consumers only pay attention to ads for 45 seconds or less, we create shorter content clips that get the point across faster. This is true across all platforms, but particularly on social media.

As brands, we acknowledge that customers watch TV with their smartphones in hand. This is the reason you saw a Coinbase QR code on a Super Bowl ad that overloaded their website with traffic a couple of years ago. It was an innovative way to get attention at the time, but novelty works once. How many other brands have run a bouncing QR code as a Super Bowl commercial? It’s great to push the envelope with your marketing and come up with new creative ideas that resonate with your customers. As long as they are consistent with your brand values and your other marketing efforts. Liquid Death and E.L.F both do a good job of this and that’s one reason their collaboration went so well, even though they are completely different brands with seemingly different audiences.

The right way to market to consumers with a short attention span is with consistency. Brief, consistent messages that build brand awareness, brand equity, and brand value over time still resonate with consumers. Most customers still need to see your brand in the market multiple times before they trust you enough to spend money with you. Themed, consistent messages with a call to action or a brand awareness element within the 45 second attention span window are the best way to effectively market your brand.