OK, this is NOT one of those ‘proud daddy’ moments… Last night I walked into our family room to this scene: TV on, my two daughters and wife on the couch. One daughter playing a game on her phone. The other daughter surfing the web on her laptop while Face-timing with a friend on her phone. My wife catching up on Facebook on her phone… “Can I turn off the TV?” I asked naively… “NO! We are watching this!” was the combined response.

This, my friends, is the problem we face as marketers – and it is why the average human attention span is now 1 second less than that of a goldfish (8 vs 9 seconds!). Thankfully, help is winning the war for the distracted customer is available! But first, some more relevant facts:

• 88% of people use a second screen (and, sometimes, a third!) while ‘watching’ television.
• The average length of time consumers spend reading or listening to an online marketing communication is between 5 and 30 seconds.
• About 1/5 of consumers receive 11 or more marketing emails A DAY.
• If a customer graces your brand with attention, the expectations regarding the experience are sky high.

And yet, with all this, people are still able to binge-watch entire seasons of shows in one sitting. So, clearly the answer is not shorter content – it is more engaging, relevant, useful, entertaining content that serves a purpose.

And this is why the distracted consumer is truly an opportunity. An opportunity to out-communicate your competition. To provide more engaging content. To exceed experience expectations. To ensure even the slightest hint of interest is converted into action.

Now, for the help you need, and the reason why I am so excited about this year’s Brand ManageCamp marketing conference. Not only do we have the expert on the Distracted Consumer – Curt Steinhorst (Best-selling author of “Can I Have Your Attention?), but we also have a slew of other branding gurus speaking on topics that all play into winning the attention war, including:

• Andrew Davis (Best-selling author of “Brandscaping”) who will be teaching us the simple secret that brilliant brands use to create video that drives results (hint: the secret is NOT creating shorter videos).
• Ann Handley (Chief Content Officer of MarketingProfs and best-selling author of “Content Rules” and “Everybody Writes”), who will show us 5 real-world writer secrets to help create better content in less time.
• Oli Gardner (Co-founder of Unbounce, Expert on Optimization and Conversion), who will illuminate us on how to ensure that once our advertising actually works, and customers seek us out, that we are able to convert interest into action.
• Blake Morgan (Best-selling author of “More is More”), who will coach us on how to go farther and work harder to create knock-your-socks-off customer experiences.
• Park Howell (Brand Storytelling Expert), who will teach us the 10-step Story Cycle System to help us craft and tell more compelling stories that connect at a more emotional level that is more likely to drive action and build loyalty.
• Meredith Ferguson (Managing Director of TMI Strategy) on making impact that matters to young customers and employees.

Add to that powerful topics on predicting trends (Rohit Bhargava), connecting the customer with your brand (Michael Brenner), driving disruptive innovation (Soren Kaplan), becoming an ‘Everywhere Brand’ (Jeffrey Rohrs), fusing brand and culture (Denise Lee Yohn),  and succeeding in the next era of advertising (Andrew Essex), and Brand ManageCamp 2018 is poised to be our biggest year yet.

So, if you truly want to win the war for your customers’ attention, there is no one magic bullet. But, at the Brand ManageCamp marketing conference we are covering a lot of the bases so that you can get a leg up on the competition and turn the reality of customer distraction into a competitive advantage.

I hope you will join us September 25-26 in Las Vegas! Now you can go back to your other two screens… 🙂