Now, more than ever, somebody has to be listening for your message to be heard.
I know that sounds obvious, but I keep seeing more clutter in the marketplace that leads me to believe marketers aren’t reminding themselves of that enough.
There are now myriad new toys available that distract marketers from their actual goal of finding real people to share great stories with. We’re seeing curious revisions to long-standing definitions of advertising effectiveness. New technology and widgets seem intent on convincing people that less is more … but that’s acceptable. Everything is being redefined as the “new something old” (I’ve heard “down is the new up,” “fewer is the new many” and so on).
So if attention is the new ROI and engagement is the new currency, then advertisers and publishers have to become more serious about investing in those two truths. Don’t get me wrong, fun new technology and emerging platforms have a place. But to date many of these tactics (and that’s what some of these are, fleeting tactics) have fallen well short of the benchmarks we used to have for ourselves, our viewers and our clients.
Three ingredients for engagement
My new philosophy is pretty simple: I’m going back to basics. Rather than doubling down on more clutter that seems to only temporarily sidetrack consumers, I’m only interested in engagement with three key ingredients; an eager and available audience, connecting with premium video, in a distraction-free environment.
That’s it. Anything else, be it new technology, a digital touchpoint or exciting new platform, has to be rooted in those three key elements before I’ll consider adding it to the arsenal.
In that equation, of particular interest to me is distraction-free environment. Some of the newest neuroscience I’ve been fascinated by proves what we have long thought—that environment absolutely matters.
Turn down distraction to turn up engagement
At Screenvision, we recently conducted research that measures the natural non-verbal reactions to advertising in different environments. The results only further my conviction. Consumers truly pay attention to messaging in environments that turn down the distractions and dial up the engagement. In environments that promote this all-important connection, like cinema, consumers react to and process advertising in much more meaningful ways.
Here’s where it gets really interesting. When you can connect premium video and desirable audiences to an immersive environment there’s another factor at play: emotion.
In fact, Screenvision’s neuroscience research found emotional response in cinema to be 18 percent higher than in TV. That means not only are consumers watching, but they are emotionally connecting with the content and ads on screen, and they are processing that information in a deeper more meaningful way. The analysis even saw decreases in heartrate (that’s a good thing) creating a calmer and more cognitively engaged consumer, ultimately leading to a more lasting and memorable impression.
I consider myself incredibly lucky to be working in a medium that’s arrived as a bit of an oasis in the fragmentation storm. And while many are battening down the hatches preparing for the storm to intensify, we’ve strategically found pivot points that allow us to do the opposite. In fact, we are opening our sails and letting these winds of change carry us to engaged audiences across the country.
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Katy Loria is Chief Revenue Officer for Screenvision Media. In this role she has oversight of strategy and revenue generation for National and Local Advertising Sales. During her tenure at Screenvision Media, Loria has helped architect Cinema’s premium video strategy and enthusiastically advocates the benefits of the movie-going audience as audience replacement in an
overall media landscape of shifting viewership.
