Consumer attention is the most precious currency for marketers and advertising agencies. Yet, brands are finding themselves in troubled waters, and are having to re-navigate familiar ground as tried and tested approaches that once effortlessly resonated with consumers fail to deliver. Globally, over 80% of advertising fails to reach the critical attention threshold required to enhance brand recognition and influence consumer behaviour.

Advertising as we know it today is a fairly new construct. The modern model of ‘persuasion-led’ advertising came into being in 1922, with the first radio spot for the Queensboro Corporation’s real estate development. The spot became a template for advertising, one that is used and overused to this day. The loud and catchy jingles so beloved today by Pakistan’s advertisers were pioneered in this era. Although production values have become a lot slicker and the mediums have changed, the formula has remained remarkably consistent.

This formula relies on identifying the most promising consumers for a product or service – the prime prospects – and then intruding into their personal space as they haplessly consume their desired media. They are then ‘directly persuaded’ through a series of marketing messages (usually quite loud ones) to drive them to purchase or repurchase. This method of ‘direct persuasion’ relies on the brand’s ability to achieve high levels of ‘top-of-mind’ awareness, leading consumers to prefer a particular brand over other alternatives, thereby building purchase intent and loyalty. This crucial top-of-mind awareness relies heavily on a brand’s ability to gain consumer attention.

In Pakistan, top-of-mind awareness was easily achieved in the old days of PTV and a limited bouquet of media choices. In those days, the formula for grabbing consumer attention on mass media was as simple as buying the appropriate share of voice during established advertising breaks. Although audiences would often get irritated and skip channels during those breaks, clever media buying houses would counter this with a strong enough frequency to compensate for their skipping behaviour. This shotgun approach worked in the past, but does it help brands get quality attention from their consumers today? The shotgun approach is especially tricky on digital media as intrusive ‘push’ advertising causes what is known as ‘reactance’ among Gen Z and younger consumers.

Reactance describes how individuals respond to perceived threats to their freedom of choice. Introduced by psychologist Jack Brehm in 1966, this theory explains why people sometimes act contrary to persuasion efforts, often resisting or even opposing the ideas they are encouraged to adopt. Reactance occurs when individuals feel their freedoms are restricted, leading them to reject the imposed directive. For example, consumers told they ‘must’ buy a specific product may resist, even if they were initially inclined to purchase it.

Human nature is resistant to coercion or forced engagement. People’s desire for freedom leads them to reject brands that overtly intrude into their space, even if such approaches have worked in the past.

Another phenomenon that is reducing the effectiveness of traditional advertising is habituation. This is the gradual reduction in responsiveness to a repeated stimulus. When a nudge, such as a call to action to adopt the latest and best cell phone discount package, is repeatedly used, consumers quickly adapt and begin to ignore it. Such nudges, while initially effective, lose their sense of urgency as they become predictable and overused. This is particularly relevant today when young consumers prioritise authenticity, freedom of choice and connection with their value system.

Is forced exposure to advertising, or the simple achievement of top-of-mind recall sufficient to persuade consumers to tilt their buying behaviour towards a brand? This may have been the case in the past with fewer brands, and less cluttered and contested spaces on media. Today, given that over 80% of the advertising pushed globally is failing to achieve the critical attention threshold, there is a definite case for advertisers to revisit their approach through the lens of first principles. There is no point in pushing advertising with greater frequency if it is simply going to lead to consumer reactance. It may seem counterintuitive, but too much of an aggressive push can lead to the opposite of ‘brand positive attention’ and result in consumers actively ignoring messaging from brands. Quality attention needs to be earned. Brands could easily ask their research agencies to better profile their target audience, ask their ad agencies to create crisper, more focused messaging and ask their media buying agencies to bombard audiences with super heavy frequencies and unskippable ads – and still miss the mark.

A recent but extreme example of rejection for one set of brands, and (almost) free attention for others came with the Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) movement. Brands on the wrong side (no fault of the operators in Pakistan) of the boycott had earlier invested substantial budgets to ‘buy’ the consumers’ awareness, only to find this awareness turn into an extreme form of reactance by Gen Z as they started to exercise their freedom to say no to brands they usually showered with attention and love. The brands on the wrong side of the BDS movement suddenly found themselves clashing with Gen Z values, while ‘challenger brands’ found new purpose, as consumers suddenly started to seek them out, giving them a disproportionately large share of quality attention, and share of purchase as a result. Although this may be an extreme example, I use it to build on my point about earning consumer attention. Thoughtful marketing and advertising can help brands get a disproportionate share of consumer attention without paying their noses for it. The caveat is that brands can sometimes earn or lose their consumers’ attention through no fault of theirs; sometimes it just boils down to luck.

Advertisers should ask themselves whether their consumers value intrusive advertising, or prefer to consume content that is compatible with their values and aspirations. I genuinely feel that ads should look and feel more like content rather than polished formulaic messaging. The focus should be on differentiation, cultural values, and placement within the consumer’s natural media habitat. Formulaic advertising that is ‘force-fed’ is wasteful both in terms of resources and results. Advertisers should be wary of the ‘too much of a good thing’ phenomenon. Spot advertising aired on mass media which was historically a great thing for brands is now not so great. Influencer marketing may be great today, but will it remain as great in the future? Although I understand the instinct advertisers have to keep playing a good hand, overused approaches become formulaic and inevitably fall into the same trap.

Brands and their agencies should start applying a ‘first principles’ approach to understand their consumers, the values that matter to them, and their natural media choices. After all, if 80% of advertising fails to hit the mark, isn’t it better to strive to deliver the 20% that actually works?

Afzal Hussain is Chief Operating Officer/Chief Strategy Officer, M&C Saatchi, Pakistan. afzal.hussain@mcsaatchi.com