» with deep-dives( binge-watching, long reads) if they feel it’ s worth it.
» Context Shapes Attention: On LinkedIn, readers may give you 1-2 minutes; on TikTok, you might only get 6-10 seconds.
» The True Scarcity: It’ s not time- it’ s interest. People binge what matters to them.
That said, what was once an art of persuasion has slowly mutated into a race of attention-grabbing tactics. Marketers, pressed by competition and performance metrics, have turned campaigns into noise, overwhelming the very consumers they seek to win.
The Shift from Storytelling to Shock Value
Storytelling is humanity’ s oldest persuasion tool. Around fires, through song, across generations, we’ ve always been wired for narrative. In marketing, the greats understood this: Apple’ s Think Different didn’ t talk about processors or pixels- it told the story of rebels, creatives, and visionaries. Safaricom’ s Niko Na Safaricom didn’ t focus on call tariffs- it made“ being with Safaricom” a cultural statement of belonging.
These campaigns endured because they touched memory, identity, and pride. They didn’ t just sell a product; they positioned the brand as part of the consumer’ s life story.
Fast-forward to today, and many brands no longer aspire to be part of our stories- they just want to hijack our attention. David Ogilvy famously said,“ The consumer isn’ t a moron, she’ s your wife.” He argued that advertising must respect intelligence and attention. Today, however, respect has given way to disruption for virality.
This is why timelines feel chaotic: multiple brands shouting daily, not to inspire but to survive. And consumers? They tune out. A Nielsen study shows that the average person is bombarded with 6,000 to 10,000 ads per day. No wonder attention spans are shrinking- not from human laziness, but from defensive filtering.
The lesson here? Shock grabs attention, but the story sustains it. Modern marketers confuse the two, leading to campaigns that trend briefly but erode brand equity longterm.
The rise of Performance Marketing
Noise didn’ t emerge by accident; it was engineered. The promise of performance marketing was intoxicating: trackable, measurable, instant. For decades, marketers dreamed of knowing exactly which ad led to which sale, which campaign justified which budget. With Google, Meta, and TikTok came dashboards that told us not only who clicked, but when, where, and how often. On paper, this was revolutionary. In practice, it became a trap.
Performance marketing shifted the marketer’ s gaze from the long arc of brand building to the short sprint of conversion. Click-through rates replaced conversations. Impressions replaced impact. Vanity metrics- the dopamine hits of likes, shares, and follows- became mistaken for brand equity.
Take, for instance, the“ Sleep with Whitney” billboard in Nairobi. Instead of inviting curiosity around quality, heritage, or design, the brand leaned on shock- a borrowed technique from clickbait culture. For a moment, it worked: people noticed. But attention isn’ t the same as trust. Within days, the campaign backfired as thought leaders on LinkedIn expressed outrage. What should have sparked conversation about comfort turned into a cautionary tale about tone-deaf marketing. Contrast this with Nike. Decades after“ Just Do It” first aired, the campaign still drives
Performance marketing shifted the marketer’ s gaze from the long arc of brand building to the short sprint of conversion. Click-through rates replaced conversations. Impressions replaced impact. Vanity metrics- the dopamine hits of likes, shares, and follows- became mistaken for brand equity. sales because it’ s more than a tagline- it’ s a philosophy. Nike still uses performance channels, but the backbone is story, not statistics. The brand marries both, never confusing quick wins with long-term identity.
David Ogilvy warned us about this decades ago:“ Don’ t count the people you reach. Reach the people who count.” Yet modern marketers often do the opposite. A campaign may reach millions, but if none of them are moved to remember, trust, or choose the brand, the reach is hollow.
Performance marketing isn’ t inherently flawed. The dearth emerges when it becomes the only play. Marketers chasing quarterly ROI forget that brands are built over decades, not dashboards. A well-placed ad may win a click, but only a well-told story wins a lifetime.
As the African proverb goes:“ Wisdom is like a baobab tree; no one individual can embrace it.” The same holds for marketing: no single metric can embrace the whole truth of brand growth. The obsession with performance without purpose has starved marketing of depth, and this is where the erosion accelerates.
Algorithm-Driven Desperation
If performance marketing shrunk the horizon of strategy, algorithms have shrunk the imagination. Today, many campaigns are designed not for humans but for machines- the invisible gatekeepers of attention. Marketers chase TikTok trends, Instagram reels formats, or YouTube thumbnails not because they are inherently meaningful, but because the algorithm rewards them with temporary reach.
The mis-alignment is also fueled by datadriven obsession with platforms like Google and Meta offering unparalleled trackability. The rise of programmatic ads, A / B testing, and performance dashboards, campaigns are reduced into metrics- clicks, impressions, conversions. But in this numbers race, of cost per acquisition( CPA), Click-through rate( CTR) and last touch attribution, the narrative often suffers. Storytelling, the very soul of marketing, is sacrificed for“ optimization.” Consumers, bombarded with repetitive, impersonal ads, tune out. They scroll past. They install ad blockers. They unsubscribe.
This algorithm-first mindset has created a reactive culture. Instead of brands leading conversations, they are reduced
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