Despite proclamations that we live in an on-demand, instantly accessible world, we nevertheless continue to find ourselves waiting around. Waiting in line. Waiting in traffic. Waiting for downloads. Just… waiting.
Thankfully, all that waiting’s become far more tolerable with the ability to entertain ourselves via mobile devices, ubiquitous media, and a slew of immersive sensory experiences at our disposal. (Man, are we spoiled!) But how many brands are taking advantage of these lingering moments? This is something we’ve discussed as part of our work on various P&G hair color brands, which require consumers to sit around as part of the process. Sure, today’s consumer can probably entertain herself, but why can’t the brand help? After all, for each of these products, we know exactly how long this consumer is waiting around.
For instance, take eggwatchers.com, a site that emerged from a British agency’s “hack day.” Visitors to the site enter their egg’s characteristics and the desired texture, and the site will calculate exactly how long the egg needs to be boiled. But, now that the site knows exactly how long the user will be occupied, it also knows exactly how long that visitor needs to be entertained. Thus, it matches the user with a Youtube video that lasts exactly as long as the boiling time. Talk about delighting the consumer!
Of course, consumers are stuck sitting around outside their homes as well. We’ve seen a handful of brands entertaining consumers as they wait at bus stops, but Joel Kyack, an artist in Los Angeles, wanted to bring the same kind of entertainment to folks stuck in the city’s infamous traffic jams. Enter Superclogger, a guerrilla puppet show intended to entertain deadlocked drivers. Kyack broadcasts the audio portion of his show to the radios of cars in his vicinity, while also tweeting the location of his truck. Are we suggesting that Kraft loads up an Athenos puppet and head out on the Dan Ryan Expressway? Um, no. We’re just saying that consumers are increasingly accustomed to being entertained whenever there’s downtime, and there’s room for marketers to provide branded entertainment in these intervals.
Granted, that puts marketers in competition with distractions ranging from iPods to iPhones to iPads, and breaking through that kind of clutter requires especially engaging content. Fortunately, we know that brands can provide this kind of entertainment. For instance, LVMH has created a site called Nowness (pictured above), which provides a quick-hitting daily dose of… well, immersive sensory experiences drawn from the worlds of “fashion, art, cinema, entertainment, culture, music, gastronomy, design, travel, and the world of luxury.” Gee, I hope they didn’t miss anything. The site makes only passing mentions of LVMH, but its stated goal is to further define, encourage the luxurious lifestyles of LVMH consumers (a niche network, for sure). But, from our vantage point, it looks like an effective way to build the LVMH brand through curated entertainment. And while it’s not explicitly intended to be a time-filler, it can certainly function that way due to the brevity of each entry.
But, getting back to the question at hand: as a brand, are you aware of any moments (however brief) where your target consumer is stuck waiting around? If so, you’ve got a potential consumer who’s receptive to entertainment. And if you can’t provide it, they’ll find it somewhere else.
