It's been circulating for quite some time
now, but lately it's become almost more than official that for Gen Y, it
is impossible to keep a constant stream of attention.
It all started off with the smartphone, leading to an eradication of FULL ATTENTION to almost anything - family dinners, TV shows, work placements. Everyone has been trying to battle with this growing trend, some by disallowing Facebook use at work, others by requesting that all phones be shut off at a given venue (a virtually unheard of phenomenon). More elaborate (and consequently, quite funny) endeavours have been games like these, where friends at dinner are requested to put their phones face down on the table for the duration of the meal (or else be stuck with paying for everyone). If anything, the "third-screen" mission of the tablet made things worse, and now we're stuck with youth in continuous partial attention mode, which is sometimes the best that retailers can hope for.
Some have released the poor hope of getting around the situation and have instead begun to embrace it, like in the famous one second-commercial from High Life.
There's also advertisers that believe that even though people aren't paying full attention and may not even remember the commercial they see on TV, more exposure will make the brand more popular. I must say that this holds true to psychological theory, where more exposure to anything at all will make us like it more. (I could rant about studies done on this topic, but I digress.) So if when trying to sell products, all that we're looking for is EXPOSURE and barely any attention then isn't the traditional method of retail almost completely outdated? Who has the attention to listen to a sales assistant present all the advantages/disadvantages of a new product when at five clicks you could be looking at reviews reflecting more than one person's opinions? Products (and brands) have lost the idealized facade, and are now up against real life ratings depicting their real quality - retail just got more interesting.
The sheer number of ways in which brands can sell their products to consumers is staggering - with mobile applications, brand's website, through internet distributors, store distributors, original stores, the list goes on. The changes that are happening in retail at the moment are signs of retail convergence and attempting to establish platforms which are suited to the media-filled lives of new consumers.
It all started off with the smartphone, leading to an eradication of FULL ATTENTION to almost anything - family dinners, TV shows, work placements. Everyone has been trying to battle with this growing trend, some by disallowing Facebook use at work, others by requesting that all phones be shut off at a given venue (a virtually unheard of phenomenon). More elaborate (and consequently, quite funny) endeavours have been games like these, where friends at dinner are requested to put their phones face down on the table for the duration of the meal (or else be stuck with paying for everyone). If anything, the "third-screen" mission of the tablet made things worse, and now we're stuck with youth in continuous partial attention mode, which is sometimes the best that retailers can hope for.
Some have released the poor hope of getting around the situation and have instead begun to embrace it, like in the famous one second-commercial from High Life.
There's also advertisers that believe that even though people aren't paying full attention and may not even remember the commercial they see on TV, more exposure will make the brand more popular. I must say that this holds true to psychological theory, where more exposure to anything at all will make us like it more. (I could rant about studies done on this topic, but I digress.) So if when trying to sell products, all that we're looking for is EXPOSURE and barely any attention then isn't the traditional method of retail almost completely outdated? Who has the attention to listen to a sales assistant present all the advantages/disadvantages of a new product when at five clicks you could be looking at reviews reflecting more than one person's opinions? Products (and brands) have lost the idealized facade, and are now up against real life ratings depicting their real quality - retail just got more interesting.
The sheer number of ways in which brands can sell their products to consumers is staggering - with mobile applications, brand's website, through internet distributors, store distributors, original stores, the list goes on. The changes that are happening in retail at the moment are signs of retail convergence and attempting to establish platforms which are suited to the media-filled lives of new consumers.
Nelly
Matorina is a marketing director at Automated-Stores OY, a producer of
Automated Retail Stores for companies such as A1 in Austria, and writes a
blog at http://www.automatedstores.blog.com. She is a writer and editor-in-chief of Rhetoric Magazine. http://www.rhetoricmagazine.com
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