Marketing Stimulation

Our tolerance of and need for stimulation has definitely increased over the years.

It doesn’t seem that long ago that TV shows realized they were losing the attention of the audience, so they began to move toward much shorter camera shots. The average shot went from maybe 10 to 15 seconds all the way down to about 1-2 seconds. Then the camera got jittery to add even more stimulation. Still this doesn’t seem to be enough.

I’ve noticed lately that both my 11-year-old son and my 14-year-old daughter cannot JUST watch TV. They actually get bored, even with jittery 1-second scenes.

They now need to be on their laptops while watching TV at the same time to be stimulated. It’s astonishing to watch. Yet they seem to have full retention of the TV show and full retention of what they are doing on the computer all at the same time.

The other night I walked into my 18 year old’s room and saw him holding the house phone on one ear talking to a friend, a headset on the other ear talking to fellow online Call of Duty gamers in the heat of battle, all while text messaging his girlfriend on his mobile phone. As a baby boomer I would probably blow up trying to do this. For kids it seems second nature.

How will we stimulate the next generation? Might we end up sending our marketing messages 140 characters at a time? Or by then will it be down to 4 characters at a time -- and jittery?

P.S. By then YouTube, Twitter and Facebook will all have merged and will be called, "You Twit Face". (courtesy of Conan O'Brian).

 
Updated 5-8-12
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Steve Kellogg
-Demand Generation/Marketing Automation Consultant, Astadia
-Eloqua Certified Marketing Best Practices Consultant

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