Engagement of modern day audiences has shifted in a major way and it is becoming increasingly difficult to capture their attention. NO longer can you assume somebody is just going to sit down and watch TV, uninterrupted. They are going to be sitting at the TV, with their phone in their hand scrolling the social feeds or the web. To that end, it feels that all dynamism has been lost. Thousands of companies, or people are screaming at the top of their lungs for your attention.

This shift has consumers seeking space.

Let’s take last year’s Super Bowl for example. This is the big dance for a marketer, its the one time consumers actually like to engage with commercials and is something they look forward to seeing. We see companies drop tens of millions of dollars on what will be their ad of the year. While commercials become increasingly outrageous in trying to make you laugh, or cry, they all seemingly go about it in the same way. Last year’s standout ad, a QR code that bounced around the screen for a minute with cheap 8 bit music. This ad drove over 20 million users to take a picture of it in just a minute.

This ad created space from all the other ads. If people were looking at their phones, the repetitive monotone music was sure to have the consumer look up after about 15 seconds of hearing it. Some people claim they thought their TV was broken or the Super Bowl commercials were being hacked. The blank screen with QR code created intrigue and inspired fast simple action. It created space for an experience to take place.

Our audiences want space, we need to engage in a different way for them to find it.