Movies, Box Sets, Gaming, and of course our social media feeds.

Content is everywhere and during 'lockdown' we see post from friends and family asking for suggestions of what to watch for themselves and to keep the family entertained during this Covid19 confinement stage.

It's said that UK consumers only watch an ad for 2.4 seconds on average before skipping, with the nation’s ad skipping rate at 52% compared to 57% in the US.

It's telling us that with the Tsunami of digital intrusions which currently sits somewhere between 4k - 10k per day that's constantly clogging up our browsing and viewing experience that today brands have just 2.4 seconds to get their message across - which has got to be one of the definitions of utter brand marketing madness?

I don't know about you but as bad as this lockdown has been I for one have never thought "I think i'll commit to watching 20 minutes of adverts today". 

But without really thinking about it I'm spending that and more consuming content across my social media feeds that I'm interested in, can learn from, and relate to, along with 'discovering' other stuff from my peers, friends, and sometimes family - mainly on one social media platform or another.

Today there are over 3.8Bn people on social media. We could argue that we're subject to content overload, however from what we can evidence on platforms like LinkedIn it seems most of the subscribers are happy to leave it to others.

'Content Discovery' by definition puts you and me in control, we're happy to spend more time on subject matters that we can relate to, and during that time we're also open to other topics as long as the content is in context with where we started our 'discovery' in the first place and comes via someone we know.

So if you wanted to gain traction and eyeballs by 'relevant' audiences and consumers instead of advertising which carries a 50-75% fraud penalty for every £/$ spent what could you do?

1) Think Media - Not content - entertain and inform, but make it feel real. We can all smell an advert dressed up as something else a mile off.

2) Think Media - Not adverts - With the influx of D2C brands (and their inevitable competitors) playing fast and loose in the digital ad space, more marketing £/$ are needed to compete for the same impressions.

3) Think Authenticity - Not Corporate - Leverage Employee advocacy to unlock stories about your brand, people don't watch or read your brand police polished stuff anyway.

Here's something else that's a tad radical - How about just trying to be social?