AUDIENCE(5)
1. Ken Tucker, “Springsteen Speaks,” Entertainment Weekly, February 28, 2003, www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,261357,00.
2. “Fold the Front Page,” Graphic Detail (blog), June 4, 2013, www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2013/06/daily-chart-1?fsrc=scn/tw_ec/fold_the_front_page.
3. Motorola, “2013 Media Engagement Barometer—Unveiling Our Global Media Habits, One Question at a Time,” Arris Solutions Blog, March 19, 2013, www.arriseverywhere.com/2013/03/motorolas-2013-media-engagement-barometer-unveiling-our-global-media-habits-one-question-at-a-time/.
4. Reuters, “The Internet of Things: By 2020, You’ll Own 50 Internet-Connected Devices,” Huff Post Tech, April 22, 2013, www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/22/internet-of-things_n_3130340.
5. KeithWagstaff, “Netflix Loses 800,000 Subscribers after Price Hike, Qwikster Debacle,” Time, October 24, 2011, http://techland.time.com/2011/10/24/netflix-loses-800000-subscribers-after-price-hike-qwikster-debacle/.
Chapter 2
The Audience Imperative: Our Hybrid Source of Business Energy
[T]he difference between a theatre with and without an audience is enormous. There is a palpable, critical energy created by the presence of the audience.1
—Andy Goldsworthy
As Britain’s foremost environmental artist, Andy Goldsworthy doesn’t usually perform with an audience. He works alone or with his team, assembling often fragile sculptures out of natural materials including sticks, stones, leaves, and even snow. However, Goldsworthy changed his approach in 1996 when he partnered with ballet choreographer Régine Chopinot to produce Végétal, a piece of performance art that married dance and with environmental sculpture.2 Goldsworthy reflects on the experience in his book Midsummer Snowballs, which perfectly captures what an audience provides to the artist:
Critical energy.
Picture an empty arena. Quiet. Still. Serene. Now picture it full of people overflowing with excitement for the sporting event they’re about to see. Even in the abstract, the difference is palpable—because we’ve all been there. Each and every one of us has been a part of an audience that’s chanting, singing, and stomping our feet for more.
There’s a reason comedians, stage actors, musicians, and athletes say they “feed off the crowd.” It’s because audience energy can literally make or break their performance.
Think about when you’re more energized in your own business. Are you sitting alone in your office or interacting with prospects and customers? And which room is more “electric”: an empty store or one filled with people? The answers may be self-evident, but I raise them to point out a fundamental truth:
Consumers are the fundamental source of business energy.
When consumers channel their energy into your business, the cash register rings. When they don’t, it’s lights out. What separates the winners from the losers is the ability to keep consumer interest (i.e., energy) flowing when and where your business needs it to propel sales, donations, or whatever pays the bills. Of course, the corollary to this proposition intrigues me even more:
Each and every company is in the energy business.
You may not consider yourself to be akin to an explorer when you put on your marketing hat—but you are. You spend your professional life on a constant quest to locate, tap, and transform consumer energy into sales for your company. And frankly, the effort to convince, cajole, and coax consumers off of their couches—and smartphones—to pay attention to your products or services is no less difficult at times than drilling for oil beneath the deepest ocean.
Attention is the precious natural resource all companies are struggling to acquire and retain. The fragmentation of consumer attention across channels, devices, and locations has created a genuine energy crisis for marketers. As a result, companies are scrambling to find additional sources of energy to fuel their businesses.
Attention is the precious natural resource that all companies are struggling to acquire and retain.
Marketing’s Fossil Fuel
I remember standing dumbfounded at the sight of a Sinclair Oil (@SinclairMemory) station sign as a child. It was a largely green, white, and red affair that would have been unremarkable save for one element—the green dinosaur below the red Sinclair name. You must understand one thing: Dinosaurs are irresistible to eight-year-old boys. They are big, scaly, and terrifying—in short, THEY ARE THE COOLEST THINGS EVER!!!
Now I’m not sure why Sinclair wanted to appeal to my particular demographic of dino-loving tweens, but their logo did lead me to ask my father why a brontosaurus (or another ’saurus of unknown etymology) was shilling for a gas station. A learned man, my father turned to me and said (without missing a beat), “Because oil comes from dinosaurs.”