Why your marketing activations are failing to deliver

We’ve got marketing activations all wrong…

That’s a bold statement to make, but let me show you exactly why we at Komo believe this to be true.

Marketing activations refer to the various activities that organizations take to promote their brand, product, or services and engage customers. These often involve competitions, games, or giveaways and include some form of customer data capture. 

In our work with some of the largest brands across the world, we have found that many are allocating as much as 20% or more of their marketing budget to activations.

However, for these same customers, a recurring theme consistently emerges.

A huge portion of the budget is being devoted to activations, but they’re failing to hit the mark. Time and time again, the activations are underperforming and delivering much lower returns than our customers desire.

Why is this the case, I hear you ask? And more importantly, how can we execute activations that don’t, well… suck?

Let’s start by talking about attention.

Have you been paying attention?

In 2009, Pixar released the tear-jerker animated film, Up. Anyone who is familiar with the movie will remember the hilarious character, Dug, a Golden Retriever whose collar can convert his thoughts into speech. Being a dog, Dug is prone to distraction and will stop talking mid-sentence, only to refocus his attention on a nearby squirrel. 

So, why am I talking about an animated talking dog named Dug?

Well, believe it or not, we are much the same as Dug.

In her book 'Attention Span,' University of California, Irvine Professor Gloria Mark details how her study with the team at Microsoft Research found that our attention spans have drastically shrunk in the last two decades. In 2003, we were able to pay attention for 2.5 minutes before shifting our focus. However, by 2021, much like Dug, we could only focus for an average of 47 seconds.

Humans have a fundamental attention problem.

This poses an obvious challenge for brands. Unless their activations are spectacular and are offering actual value to customers, it is unlikely that they will capture attention.

Add into the mix the reality of brand spam that customers receive every day and your chances of cutting through are virtually nil.

While an attention problem is responsible for underperforming activations, it’s only half of the equation.

So, what’s the other half?

Navigating the Attention Chasm

Let me introduce you to what I call ‘the Attention chasm.’

We have observed that most brands approach their activations with a hyper-focus on capturing attention.

It makes sense, right?

With a human attention problem at play, you’d want to double down on your ability to capture customer attention.

Well, this is only half true.

Many of our customers have historically focused heavily on capturing customer attention, with little focus on actually retaining it.

They’re investing considerable time, effort, and dollars only to let the attention of the customers drop off. This creates an uphill battle, as they’re having to repeat their efforts to re-capture attention every single time they run an activation.

They are essentially struggling to cross ‘the Attention chasm’.

While attention is definitely a key issue, retention is arguably the most critical factor and has the potential to make or break your activation.

The key to any activation delivering the results you expect lies in attention retention — your ability to not only capture attention but also retain it for as long as possible. By eliminating the gap between attention and retention and crossing the attention chasm, you can maximize customer engagement with your brand and improve the ROI of your activations.

It’s easier said than done. Let’s look at why many activations fail to achieve this.

Why current approaches just aren’t cutting it

Have a think through all the marketing activations you have encountered recently.

Maybe there was a QR code on your tub of butter prompting you to scan to enter a competition, only to be followed by a basic webpage with a form for filling out your details.

Perhaps you were watching TV and there was a fantastic ad for a consumer goods brand featuring a prominent celebrity. The ad pushed you to engage on a branded website but the overall experience was pretty underwhelming.

More often than not, this is the reality for marketing activations.

Whether there is significant cost investment or not, the activations are anchored in basic data capture mechanics and experiences that fail to add value and truly engage customers. This leads to low attention retention for brands, as well as limited opportunities for brand advocacy and recall.

As a result, there is so much missed opportunity on the table, and activations that could be breaking ROI records are actually just breaking the budget.

But what if there was a better way?

Cross the Attention Chasm with Komo

That’s where Komo comes in. Komo is the ultimate marketing activations platform built to supercharge attention retention.

Whether you’re a small or enterprise customer, Komo makes the building of powerful activations simple, quick, and cost-effective, so you can spend less time creating and more time maximizing your return on investment.

With activations built through Komo, you can capture rich customer data while offering captivating experiences that achieve high attention retention. This ultimately leads to much higher brand advocacy and recall rates, and activations that generate greater ROI.

We leverage the power of gamification, incentivization, and personalization to create activations customers can’t ignore. You’ll be able to offer fun and immersive games, rewarding engagement with incentives that your audience actually care about, all while personalizing the experience to make it more relevant and meaningful.

This ultimately equips you to bridge the attention chasm, effortlessly capturing attention and generating repeat engagement with your brand.

Our customers have experienced the benefits of attention retention firsthand. We have consistently seen:

• An average increase in attention of 538%
• A 5-minute average attention time, compared to 54 seconds on websites across all industries
• Average attention rate of 94%
• Zero-party data capture rate of 99%
• Repeat audience engagement
  

Here are some real-world examples of how our customers are transforming their activations with Komo:

• How Komo helped the Foxtel Reward program deliver a 204% return on investment
• How Komo powered exclusive in-app fan engagement at NYCC 2023
• How Prism’s WWC gamification strategy delivered over 6.7k leads for Hyundai

Don’t settle for activations that fail to deliver the results you desire. Click the button below to book a demo or request a 14-day free trial — we’d love to show you how Komo can supercharge attention retention for your brand.