Introducing Attention Seekers

The idea for Attention Seekers was borne out of inspiration. Inspiration from working on the front lines with social audiences in gaming, music, sport, politics and culture.

And it was borne from frustration. Frustration with the old way. The easy solutions and safe ideas that put the brand first and the audience second.

We know audiences are constantly changing. They move faster than marketing. Modern digital marketing practices are traditionally slow to evolve, and are often 12-24 months behind audience behaviour. Audiences have become increasingly disengaged with brands serving repetitive content on their channels, buying ‘attention’ on Google and Facebook.

It’s time for that to change, time for brands to acknowledge that a one-size-fits-all marketing strategy no longer works. Instead, they need to listen to audience needs, learn what content excites them and how best to serve it to them.

This is a new strategy; a new approach; one that looks to solve these issues whilst allowing brands to achieve cut-through online. We call it decentralised content marketing.

What is decentralised content marketing?

It’s not as scary or complicated as it seems. Simply put, it’s our own unique approach to content marketing that leverages audience design, content customisation and targeted distribution to deliver and maintain true audience attention. Traditional digital marketing strategies are starting to show their age as audiences become more expensive to reach with less of a return for brands. Bloated budgets are committed to paid media that promise to deliver scale, without driving true attention or efficacy. Our approach flips the script.

We help brands identify their target audience(s) and where they spend their time online. This process results in laser-focused creative strategy and authentic content that resonates with fans. Decentralisation is key – within the Attention Seekers strategy, content doesn’t solely exist on brand-owned channels but instead lives and breathes on audience and creator channels.

But this isn’t influencer marketing. In our model the brand still holds all the cards, but accesses audience by a value exchange with channel owners. They hold the keys to audience but need high value content to entertain them. We enable the transition from creator to curator, empowering audience owners to monetise their communities with brand-owned content that is personalised, customised and targeted for their channels.

This process of decentralising branded content democratises the marketing funnel, making audiences participants rather than observers and allowing them to build longer-lasting relationships with brands.

Utilising our model, brands don’t need to attract audiences to their channels – rather, we empower brands to be featured authentically on the channels audiences want to spend their time with. For us, we’re not interested in only creating content for brands; our ambition is to create branded content for audiences.

A key part (and unfortunately unique aspect) of our approach is to always be adding value to the experience audiences and creators have with the brands we work with. The cumulative effect of this approach is better engagement, stronger campaign creative and pinpoint-relevance for target audiences.

Check out some of our case studies to dive deeper into the Attention Seekers model. If you’re curious about our decentralised marketing process, drop Joe Noone (jnoone@attentionseekers.com) a line to find out more.