Information used to be expensive. There were three elements to its cost:
- Production
- Distribution
- Acquisition
Production is the last cost standing. Acquisition and distribution are now free.
By hook or crook you can get anything you want – scholarly articles, movies, songs – with a few clicks. Put mildly, it’s very controversial.
Here’s where it gets interesting. When distributing information had a price tag, receiving information held value in sheer reciprocity. You found a coupon book in the mail and thought, “Wow, they paid to print this for me! And in full color, that’s nice.” In fact, some of us even purchased coupon books. Remember?
But now we get on Twitter and there’s a coupon in our timeline. We open email and there’s a Groupon in our inbox. We sit at bus stops and scan QR codes for 50% off Chinese food. If you play your cards right (brands and consumers alike), information is free to acquire and free to distribute. As advertising executive Jon Bond once said, “The future of marketing is like sex — only losers will pay for it.”
Which is why brand awareness is dead.
Nowadays there’s almost no friction to proliferate a slogan, or logo, or sales message. Jack Dorsey and Jimmy Wales and Al Gore (evidently) changed the dynamic for better or worse. The “barrier to entry” ship has sailed, and we’re beginning to see consumers demanding more. This “more” factor is the only way to sift through the crap.
So what’s going on?
Consumers want a new value prop entirely. We want to feel something, in our fingers and our toes. And that feeling, the powerful albeit dangerously finicky sensation that we have a knack for demanding yet cannot quite put our fingers on – will indirectly convert us to buy. Because while we abhor being sold to, we love to buy.
The brand gurus’ heads are exploding: “How do we make them buy?” But they’re asking the wrong question. They should be asking “How do we make them feel?” Because quite frankly, “brand awareness” isn’t it.
*Works Cited: K-Mart