Years back, I saw a documentary that studied the sensory engagement of motorbike rider. They used eye tracking sensors to see where the attention was.
Out on the road, the rider was constantly scanning the horizon to identify potential threats. Every pedestrian, side street and pothole was locked in on, and the risk assessed, before searching for the next anomaly.
This high degree of vigilance used to be present in all walks of life. In the earliest days of our species, we relied on constantly searching for anything out of the ordinary, as our survival often depended on it. A rustle in the bushes or a movement in a branch above could signal a deadly predator.
‘What has this got to do with marketing?’, you’re probably wondering.
Well, I watched a presentation recently, where the speaker referenced the relevance of this ancient human trait in modern-day communication.
Look five sentences up, and you’ll see the word ‘anomaly’. You spotted it easily, because it’s bold and italicised. So it stands out as being different. Our brains are hard-wired to search out anything that doesn’t conform to its surroundings. Conversely, we ignore things that appear familiar or predictable.
The speaker likened this to the way we process the comms in our social feed. What we think we’ve seen before, we scroll past. What looks unusual activates that ancient part of our brain that makes us stop and take notice.
I’ve recently seen content agencies proudly spruiking their ability to replicate top-performing campaigns within specific categories. In other words, if you’re a lipstick brand, they’ll pull in the most popular social content for lipstick, and shoot your product in an identical style. Same looking talent, same sounding track, same typography, same, same, same.
The inference is that, if that piece of content achieved success, so will you.
But they’re missing a fundamental factor. The original invariably worked because it was different. It was a trend setter, not simply the ‘on trend’ imitation that they’re naively proposing.
In ever-more competitive categories, engaging, memorable communication needs to deliver the message in a relevant, but unexpected way.
Otherwise, you’re in real danger of simply going unnoticed.
Thanks for reading.