Nothing has had more impact on the amount of content being created than the advent and growth of social media.
There has been a growing consensus that every single brand is now a media by itself.
Every brand is continuing to generate content at a speed at which their consumers are not even able to consume the content.
The shelf life of any content is reducing drastically and for most of the content it is just a couple of hours from the time it was created or promoted. This has led to a slew of promotion of content, across media, which is not necessarily good or bad by itself. Its just like shouting loud in a crowded bazaar so that our customers can discover us and our content.
Another reason for this enormous increase in content is the change in buying behavior or most consumers/customers. Now, before we even contact our supplier or decide to buy a brand, we go to the social media and want to read or find out what our friends have to say about the product. We want to know what experts say about the brand. What do other customers who have bought the product say about their experience.
What this forces the marketers to do is to attempt to create content that can answer almost any question that we might have. The content also then becomes a vehicle to sell the brand promise to us.
Among all of these challenges, marketers, forget the most basic tenet of marketing. They have forgotten that the first step in any marketing campaign is to create curiosity; Curiosity in us to find out more; curiosity in us to explore more.
In the recent times, I think Elon Musk did a great job of creating curiosity about his HyperLoop. He started creating curiosity months before he actually unveiled his idea. And when he did present the idea, the publicity that he got was unbelievable. No amount of money or advertising or great content could have bought him the kind of attention and engagement he got on this topic.
Though a lot of this could be attributed to him being who he was, but still I would consider this event as a clear indication that curiosity will always trump content.
It is in human nature to be curious. So, smart marketers will realize this and tap into this aspect of being human and find way to create curiosity.
We become curious when we get to know about something just enough to want to know more. This is where good marketers can rely on the art of story telling. You reveal only so much that people want to know more about it and then some more.
Lady Gaga creates curiosity about her outfits, songs and gigs in every interview she gives.
Apple does this to a certain extent as well. They ensure that there is all kinds of speculation going on about what it is that they are going to unveil every time they are about to do it.
Have you come across a campaign that has used curiosity to get their customers/prospects hooked and wanting for more? Please share these stories with us. We can all learn from these stories.
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PS: There is a lot that marketers can learn from master story tellers like Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg, etc.. Here is a clip where he talks about cinematic tension. This is exactly what marketers need to master to get their customers/prospects to keep coming back to them. Enjoy!
