e-commerce & social media

I'm in Turkey this week to speak at Brand Week Istanbul. I always love seeing how things are merchandized, marketed, and sold in different countries.

... It struck me how the bazaar is a metaphor for marketing in general. Every brand is trying to capture consumer’s attention in a world as cluttered as the Grand Bazaar. Marketers sometimes act as if shouting is the only way to get a message across. When every brand shouts, it can seem like the only solution is to shout louder.

Seth Godin coined this model as “Interruption Marketing” in the late 90s (and wrote the book “Permission Marketing” as an antidote). I stumbled across a classic Seth Godin interview in Fast Company from 1998:

“Marketing is a contest for people’s attention. Thirty years ago, people gave you their attention if you simply asked for it. You’d interrupt their TV program, and they’d listen to what you had to say. You’d put a billboard on the highway, and they’d look at it. That’s not true anymore. This year, the average consumer will see or hear 1 million marketing messages – that’s almost 3,000 per day. No human being can pay attention to 3,000 messages every day....

Via Jeff Domansky