The Built-In Remote

Every waking minute of every day the consumer has a built-in remote control for marketing messages. If what they see, read, hear, touch, smell or sense doesn’t register with them, they will literally or figuratively turn off the message, hit mute, change the channel or hit fast forward. This is bad.

If what is presented to consumers engages them enough to spark some emotion, interest, curiosity or attention they will literally or figuratively hit rewind, record, pause or simply keep their hands off the remote. This is good.

This is true no matter the marketing method: TV commercials, radio ads, sales calls, billboards, presentations, publicity, websites, paid search ads, direct mail, email, magazine ads, packaging, online ads, white papers…take your pick.

Consumers are bombarded by thousands of messages a day and to escape this cacaphony they’ve learned to adapt with the aid of things like their built-in remote. What button is the person you are trying to reach going to hit when exposed to your message?