The Shifting Sands of Marketing – A – from Awareness to Activation

Before the disruption caused by the digital sandstorm, Awareness was a key marketing objective. The aim was to deliver big numbers and was inextricably linked to Reach. The model was based on a world view encapsulated by the pneumonic AIDA, a four-step sequential approach, where it was initially necessary to interrupt the recipients of the communication in order to gain their Attention. (Steve Harrison, the talented and influential Creative Director, prefers to use the term “Relevant Abruption” to interruption.)
Having gained the prospects’ Attention, the message was intended to arouse Interest before igniting (or rekindling) a Desire for the product as a prelude to encouraging Action (ideally leading to product purchase.)
The model implied that the larger the number of the “right” people exposed to the advertising, the larger the resulting sales volume. This is a classic example of a top down strategy.
Post sandstorm, advertising awareness at scale is no longer a key objective. Awareness has been superseded by a bottom up metric – Activation. Emphasis has effectively moved from breadth to depth, with marketers eager to understand not the number who have been exposed to the campaign, but to what extent the behaviour of those exposed has been modified.
Activation is a measurement not of “how many?” but “how much?” and includes a quantification, not of the soft historic metric – opportunities to see, but of a harder-edged behavioural metric – accepted invitations to engage.
Activated engagement in this context includes physical interaction with branded content, downloading, customisation/manipulation as well as onward dissemination of the marketing communication within each individual’s personal network.