In The Interruptibles, Damian Thompson and Katie Elgie argue that there is a place for traditional interruptive marketing in today’s marketing world.
The emergence of Web 2.0 has empowered consumers and demanded that brands shift their communication away from interruption marketing towards ‘permission marketing’. Permission marketing – coined by Seth Godin – suggests advertisers should wait for potential customers to volunteer their interest before communicating with them, and that communication should seek to develop an ongoing and bespoke relationship. Conversely, interruption marketing is communication that is one-to-many and comes to consumers without invitation. In other words, interruption marketing can be any form of traditional advertising from television commercials to direct mail: “A 30 second spot interrupts a Seinfeld episode. A telemarketing call interrupts a family dinner. A print ad interrupts an article.” (Seth Godin 1)
Overview
- In spite of concerns over the value of traditional ‘interruptive’ marketing, the effects of modern technology on consumers have led to a valuable and more clearly defined role for this increasingly maligned model of communication
- While more and more commercial communication focuses upon establishing a collaborative and conversational relationship with an audience, the role of relevant interruption marketing is to capture consumer attention in a noisy and fast-paced world
- People’s different states of attention can be mapped on an ‘attention continuum’. When they are in a less focused state of attention, they are more likely to welcome appropriate interruptions
- We identified a group of people called Networkers, who present advertisers with a greater number of interruption opportunities; but converting them from ‘interrupted’ to ‘engaged’ is more challenging than for other consumers
- The golden rule: an interruption should be an icebreaker, not the sole form of communication; only interrupt an audience if it offers the opportunity of engaging them.
While questions about the effectiveness of traditional advertising techniques are widespread, Mediaedge:cia’s research demonstrates that there is still a valuable and clearly defined role for interruptive marketing – and that there are even audiences who actively welcome it.
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