Can I have your attention, please?

Not all attention is created equal. Attention on its own, won’t get people to buy your brand. Instead, be more specific and focus on building Associative Attention.

Mar 15, 2024

A joint article with Max Stricker originally published in WARC February 2024.

Why it matters

An ad may get seen by many people, but will they remember who the ad was for? And will they know and remember why the brand, product or service is relevant to them? Associative Attention can help a brand stand out, be thought of in a buying moment, and ultimately, impact sales.

Key takeaways

First, decide what associations to get attention for you. It’s about consistently linking your brand, product or service to what’s relevant to your customers through a clear understanding of category entry points (CEPs).
Do this in a distinctive way that makes your brand instantly recognisable, regardless of the touchpoint. Be consistent as you build these associations over time. Brands like McDonald’s and Mastercard do this brilliantly.
Secondly, identify how to get attention. We live in a world of information-overload. Our audience doesn’t spend much time looking at our ads. There are plenty of techniques you can use to get attention. What works will also depend on the channel and platform you are using.
Think about using surprise to grab the attention of your audience. Remember that context matters. The context in which your brand or product is shown in. Consider changing your shopfront to stand out from the grey of the highstreet. Or have different packaging that draws attention on the shelf (think Prime or Liquid Death)

Our attention span is declining. Aim for attention, attention is key, we live in the attention economy. Attention or die.

We’re all familiar with these claims. But what actually is attention? Why is attention important? What do I, as a business owner or marketer, need to do about it? Should I even care about it?

Are marketers and advertisers getting caught up with the fluff rather than focusing on the substance?

If you’re paying attention, you’ll know that it’s simply not true that human attention spans are declining to that of a goldfish. If they had, you wouldn’t have even gotten this far. The science shows it’s just another myth that culture has turned into gospel. Technology has definitely fragmented our attention, but there is no universal rule of human attention, no set amount of time that defines its effectiveness. There is certainly no evidence that shows a decline on a biological level, as the ridiculous ‘goldfish’ myth alludes to.

And here we face the first challenge of attention for marketers and advertisers, definition.

Psychologists define attention as “the ability to actively process specific information in the environment while tuning out other details”.

Based on this definition, if you want attention for attention’s sake, just do something incredibly offensive. But would this attention get you any sales? Unlikely, and we keep seeing much lauded campaigns that flop hard because the people who matter - normal people, don’t care and aren’t interested.

This is failure at the first hurdle, but that can change.

For major brands, this is moving away from quarterly campaigns that change the creative and messaging frequently. Instead focus on a single overarching creative idea and a single overarching key message into which you can fit your category entry points (Snickers, Guinness or Specsavers). These should set the creative constraints of any communications, whether they are short term or longer term campaigns. They must all ‘fit in’ with each other while being distinct from the competition.

For smaller businesses, this is good news - because of the significant cost reduction in commissioning new creative work. If you find a good idea that works you can continue to use and evolve that idea and stretch your budgets significantly further by focusing more of your spending on working vs non-working media.

Oh look, cute puppies

Most people like dogs, and Budweiser does - its famous ‘Puppy’ ad from the 2015 Super Bowl was among the most shared and talked about ads that year. The Super Bowl ads are essentially the US equivalent of the John Lewis Christmas ad. There is a ton of hype - at least in terms of industry press. These campaigns always get seen and shared and lauded with praise from industry. But what impact did these puppies actually have on sales?

US VP for Marketing at A-B InBev said whilst “everybody loves them. They have zero impact on beer sales.”

What attention gets you sales?

The first thing to recognise is that attention itself, is not an end goal. It’s an important step towards sales but attention alone is not enough to make money. To impact sales, attention needs to build mental associations. Associations that establish your brand, product or service in the minds of your potential customers.

Customers buy the brands that are mentally available, the ones that are familiar and come to mind when in a buying or decision making situation. Despite the jargon, it really is as ‘simple’ as that. But as we know, simple is never easy to get to - and getting attention is hard.

Looking more into the science, let’s talk about Associative Network Theory and Mere Exposure Effect. The research shows that to be mentally available, a brand needs to establish a breadth of relevant associations in the minds of potential customers. The stronger the familiarity and these associations are, the more likely your brand comes to mind when Joe Bloggs is thinking about buying something.

If your brand doesn’t come to mind in a buying situation, doesn’t stand out or isn’t recognised at the point of sale, what chances do you have of getting bought?

Let’s talk about this in personal terms using a story.

You want to buy a new set of headphones and set yourself a budget of £200. Are you more likely to spend the £200 on a brand that you’ve heard of previously - that is mentally available, say Sony or a brand you (probably) haven’t heard of such as AKG, an Austrian manufacturer?

The chances are you go for the safer, familiar option. Sony that is. Even if a quick Google search on your phone shows that the other brand has better reviews. There is probably an uncomfortable itch that makes you gravitate towards the familiar brand, Sony.

Are you crazy to go for the inferior one? No - you’re not crazy, you’re a human being trying to make a reasonable choice. A safe choice, one you know you probably won’t be disappointed by.

Our brains don’t like uncertainty. They prefer the familiar. And familiar means something that has existing associations in our brains. Familiar is safe, it’s trusted and it’s easy.

So, instead of just aiming for wildcard creative ‘attention’, be more precise and aim for Associative Attention that nudges the buyer closer to your brand.

Associative attention means drawing attention to your advertising or point-of-sale that is not only creative and novel in its execution but actively builds mental associations that make your brand relevant and instantly recognised in the minds of customers.

If your advertising doesn’t build associations, what are the chances that your ad helps sell your brand? If cute puppies didn’t help Budweiser sell beer then it’s clear that attention alone isn’t enough.

Driving sales: Associative Attention

There are two types of associations you want to build.

Firstly, you need to draw attention to associations that make your brand, product or service relevant to your potential customers.

Secondly, you need attention to build associations that make your brand or product easily and instantly recognisable. Be this in advertising, packaging, store etc.

Knowing what associations to get attention for is the starting point. But we also need to know how to get attention.

Building effective Associative Attention

1 - What associations to build attention for

Category Entry Points

The first step to building associative attention is to have a clear picture of category entry points (CEPs). In simple terms this means the mental shortcuts that people use when in a buying situation.

Another story for you - David is late to a meeting and as he marches through the station he realises he hasn’t eaten anything since breakfast. If he’s going to function, he needs something to eat - now.

David immediately walks into the platform cafe and grabs himself some Walkers crisps and a Twix. He can walk and eat these two so it’s perfect. Job done.

These are the CEPs that our brand, product or service needs to be relevant for. They are the building blocks for mental associations because they are relevant to David and the reasons he’s looking to buy.

Marketers and advertisers need to communicate them in ‘everything’ - from advertising to packaging and shop fronts to websites. If it’s not clear what products or services you are selling, why would someone come in to buy from you?

You wouldn’t be considered.

And that’s why knowing and communicating category entry points is so important. They are the stepping stone to get into the consideration set of potential customers. Start here, and build upwards. The foundations start with understanding the people that buy - not with exciting creative execution that might win awards but certainly doesn’t make the tills ring.

Professor Jenni Romaniuk (2023) from the Ehrenberg Bass Institute developed a useful framework that anyone can use to identify CEPs. She calls it the Ws:

Why - the benefits the category satisfies.

E.g. When I want to be up to date/part of the latest conversations

When - timing aspects of category interaction, such as time of day, week etc. or the speed of the interaction.

E.g. When i want a quick response

Where - location for category interaction, usually relating to a physical or digital place.

E.g. To use while at work

While - influential activities that occur prior, during or after category interaction.

E.g. Something to do while watching TV

with/for Whom - other people that impact the actual or desired category interaction.

E.g. Interacting with someone you are interested in romantically

with/for What - accompaniments from other categories.

E.g. To send a birthday/celebration message

hoW feeling - emotions before, during or after category interaction.

E.g. To cheer someone up/make them smile

A situation may involve different CEPs as part of the buying decision. Think back to David's train station example from earlier. It combined several Ws: Where (at train station) + When (in a rush) + While (commuting).

When using Romaniuk’s framework, marketers and advertisers don’t need to worry if they don’t identify the same number of CEPs for each W. Depending on the category, there may be more in one W and fewer in another. For some categories, there might be some Ws that don’t apply. If a product or service is only used in one location, the Where may not give you many or any CEPs. For example, toothbrushes which are typically only used in bathrooms and not other locations - no one uses them on the train, well - not enough buyers to make a difference anyway to sales.

When a brand knows the category entry points that exist in people’s minds, they need to then decide which ones to associate with the brand. The next questions need answers.

How important is each CEP for the buyer?
How strongly associated are the CEPs to the brand?
How strongly associated are the CEPs to the competitors?

A large brand will likely already have several CEPs associated with it. Brands and marketers' task is to continue to build on them and add more CEPs over time. Just think about the many reasons why people buy Coca-Cola. To get something refreshing, something sweet, something to go with a meal and so on.

Smaller brands on the other hand, would be better off with fewer or just one category entry point to start off with. However, research published via the Linkedin institute shows that bigger brands are associated with more CEPs than smaller brands. So, if you want to grow a smaller brand you will likely need to associate your brand with more CEPs over time.

Just like how a small brand might start with a niche or tight segment, it will need to expand into more segments and be broadly attractive in time - otherwise its growth will be limited.

The final point is a competitive one, considering how competition is communicating them. Are there any key CEPs that they are not communicating?

It’ll surprise no one to know that most brands don’t know much or anything about CEPs, and any success they might have with them might be accidental rather than deliberate so it’s always a good idea to try and find the gaping holes left by larger brands.

SMEs often have no customer research at all, so even small steps towards understanding CEPs will make a difference and a picture can be built with a small sample size of customers using one to one interviews and spending time where the customer is and observing how they interact with the world.

Though it’s safe to say that major brands would also be wise to get away from the desk and do this too…

So, go out there. Get off the laptop, stop reading this article and identify category entry points through the eyes of your customer. Because that’s how you start to understand how attention is related to those associations. Don’t jump the gun, do your homework.

‘Know thy customer’ Max & Sam Gospel 101.

Distinctive Brand Assets

The second part of building associative attention is to ensure that a brand is easily and instantly recognisable. Getting attention is always going to be hard - So, brands want to ensure that when someone sees or hears you, that they unmistakably know that it is your brand. Be that a digital ad, door-drop flyer, shopping bags or shop front. It all needs to look like itself.

A small business can make good use of packaging to stand out among relative competitors. The current fashion for decor is that awful asphalt shade of grey - sorry if you like it, no one will in 10 years so just adding some colour amongst that literal sea of boring literal grey goes a little way towards being noticed by passersby.

Brand needs to be distinctive across every touchpoint and across all brand assets. These are typically, visual (e.g. logo, app icons, colours, characters), auditory (e.g. jingle, voice, spoken logans) or sensory assets (e.g. packaging, mouthfeel, smell).

The starting point is to identify what - if any - distinctive brand assets a brand is already associated with. As for CEPs, it’s important that marketers and advertisers understand what makes (and doesn’t) make a brand distinctive in the eyes (or mind to be precise) of the customer. So, do some research, speak to them. Don’t just look at the brand itself, understand the market.

Consider competitors as well. What does their communication, packaging, store etc look like? What is very distinctive to them? What are the things a brand wants to avoid using (e.g. a colour, slogan or shape) because they are strongly associated with your competitors?

Once you’ve done your research, you decide what assets to focus on. These are the associations you need to draw attention to - this is where you can now get started with creative execution. Distinctive Brand Assets should be central to your creative, be this advertising or packaging.

Consistency - an underappreciated art

Imagine, if as a customer you are exposed to the same brand across different touchpoints and over time. Almost at every encounter, the brand looks, sounds or feels different. Today it is this icon, slogan or character. Tomorrow it is something else. How easy is it for you, as a customer, to recognise the brand? Probably not easy at all. You may even confuse the brand for another one - and herein lies the challenge.

Getting attention on its own is incredibly difficult. A feat that is made even more difficult when brand owners change associations and ‘everything else’ from one campaign to another. Sometimes more, sometimes less radical. But change, they usually do.

Yet, consistency is paramount as each brand encounter builds memory in the minds of customers. McDonalds and Mastercard being two brands with such strong recognition that they often simply use the ‘golden arches’ or in Mastercard’s case - using only the two familiar overlapping circles.

A counter example would be Nationwide’s recent rebrand, which has drawn strong comparisons to it’s competitor with a survey showing that 28% of people now misattribute it to Natwest.

Without consistency, it is difficult to establish strong associations for category entry points and to make a brand instantly recognisable.

When a brand lacks consistency, it isn’t capitalising on compound interest. In finance terms, compound interest refers to the principle that when you save money, as well as earning interest on the savings in your bank account, you are also earning interest on the interest itself.

The same metaphor applies to building associations. If brands keep changing the associations that they are drawing attention to regularly, then it’s not possible to capitalise on the compounding effect. Meaning brands will have to spend much more on communications and media.

The difficult reality is that people spend less than 1% of their time watching adverts. And in these fleeting moments throughout the day where brands have people’s attention, it’s difficult, perhaps even impossible, to achieve consistency and familiarity if you change associations frequently. And that goes beyond advertising, because marketing is more than just paid media. This applies to anything that ‘communicates’ to the customer with a desire to sell.

2 - The foundations are laid… now, how to get attention

We live in a world of information overload, forgive the cliche but it’s true. There are more brands, channels, platforms and touchpoints than ever before. And all of them fight for the attention of customers. No surprise then that most TV ads receive no attention (ARF 2019). The same is true for the digital world. Almost all digital ads are looked at for 1 second or less (Lumen 2019).

The biggest challenge brand owners need to overcome is to cut through the clutter and noise that customers are exposed to every day. It’s not just advertising and competitors we are talking about here. Also other distractions that include everyday activities such as working, looking after the family, meeting friends, texting, hobbies, reading, watching TV …

As a result, attention is a choice between options. It is a process that helps people sieve through all that noise to filter out things that matter to them.

Researchers suggest that we navigate the world via a process of ‘attentional satisficing’. We cannot look at everything, so our brains have developed a ‘preference’ for what we pay attention to. This preference has been developed and honed over millennia.

One of these ‘preferences’ is surprise. A tool that brand owners can utilise to get attention in their creative, packaging and also in-store.

The Big Surprise. From an evolutionary perspective, brains are hardwired to pay attention to anything that is surprising. This could be sound, motion, colour, shapes or a combination of these.

There are many techniques of how to elicit surprise. What is surprising, however, depends on expectation or the context. It’s the violation of the expectation or breaking of the context (aka contrast effect) that is surprising.

Liquid Death, a water brand that comes in a can, is a great example of a growing small brand that has moved away from category norms by focusing on getting broad attention using strong creative execution.

Violating expectations. We all have experiences that determine expectations that we have for certain situations. For example, we expect it to be quiet in a library or noisy in a bar.

If our situational expectations are broken, we pay attention. Likewise, if we see something that breaks our physical expectations (e.g. water flowing upwards) or is very difficult to achieve, we pay attention. Our brains want to find out what is going on; why our current experience is not in line with our expectations (our existing mental models of how the world works). Because, evolutionary, this thing that is different could be a threat to our life.

Breaking context. We are hardwired to immediately pay attention to things that contrast with the environment (the context). This is also called the contrast effect. This phenomenon is also known as the orienting response. It refers to the way in which we react to sudden changes (e.g. movement or sound) in our environment. This sudden change attracts our attention and can be based on sound, shape, colour, motion or light.

Make some noise. People react 16% faster to sound than visuals which means that brands need to focus on making sure they are ‘loud and proud’ in their adverts as well as being visually distinctive. Many modern adverts fail to get the attention required due to their use of generic popular music or matching voice overs that simply blend into the background. Such as the familiar ‘raspy millennial woman’ voice that narrates anything from banking through to deodorant.

On the other hand - a clear and familiar sound that most people recognise is the ‘ta-dum’ of Netflix. A sound that has been in use for years.

If things sound the same as everything else, they become background noise.

Media mastery

Media also deserves its due consideration, and how it can be used to grab attention. Good media planning is not just about budget setting but also recognising the many ways that media and placement can make a real difference to commercial effectiveness.

For example, let's say a small office fitting company is looking to plan a campaign to promote their services in a new town. They realise that the cheapest outdoor advertising is often in the worst parts of the town - often sitting on busy roads near worn out industrial estates.

The decision to use these placements could be one of cost saving, or it can use the context of the environment to increase attention by relating the new office fit to the ugly contrast of the industrial estate using messaging that relates to a potential problem such as recruitment,“Who’d want to work here? Get your office up to scratch with us and maybe they will”.

The same can be said for digital advertisements, which typically have incredibly low attention rates but this is more a result of common approach rather than creative limitations.

An example could be to use PPC in a directly competitive fashion, for example if a business offers SEO they are probably in competition with agencies running PPC. So, why not use PPC against competitors?

“Thinking about using Google Ads? Don’t waste your money on these expensive clicks - use SEO instead”.

This is a simple example, but what it shows is that media can be used to grab attention - whether it’s outdoor media or digital media, the possibilities are endless.

There’s an exciting amount of research being done on this with Professor Karen Nelson-Field being at the forefront of this.

Summing up Associative Attention.

Associative Attention is not a new buzz-word or new marketing jargon for the sake of it.

Our aim is to help marketers be more precise when thinking about, and particularly when activating attention. It’s not a monkey in a costume. And on that note, let’s sum up.

Getting people to buy from a brand over another. And it doesn’t matter whether you are in the B2C, B2B or non-profit industry. It doesn’t matter whether you are a new, small, medium or large brand. You need people to buy from your brand.

So, next time you want to get attention for your brand, be more specific and think about Associative Attention. Attention on its own, won’t get people to buy your brand. Make it Associative Attention.