memetic Manifesto
Version 4 – published by Alexandre Poncet, on Monday 25 november 2024
We have an attention problem. It does not matter on which end of that attention you stand, giving it or receiving it.
We have an attention problem.
Too many channels, broadcasters, messages. Not enough hours in the day.
On the paying end (that’s you and me, litterally trying to “pay” attention), one might argue that we’ve already turned into goldfishes. That the battle is lost. The game rigged.
On the buying end, there’s seems to be only two answers to this attention problem:
First option is shrinking the message, squeeze it in the attention span of the audience.
That’s the “content snacking” marketers love to talk about. If we could make it just short enough to fit into that bathroom break, we’d be grand.
Second option seems to be to simply shout louder and more often. The marketers like “volume”. More at-bats, they say.
But this is like trying to put out a fire using gasoline.
As both a marketer and human being (yeah, I know, don’t mention it) I believe the answer is simple.
The solution stands on two pillars: Relevance and Respect.
These two simple words might have a different meaning depending on where you stand in this attention war. Yet I believe they do matter on both ends of the spectrum.
A relevancy issue, not a delivery one
The right message, to the right person, at the right time. That would be relevance, right? You might be thinking digital marketing has been there for a while. Well, think again. We’re not even close to reaching that goal.
It could take an entire book to address the matter of relevance in marketing, but here is what I believe:
Brands won’t be able to solve their relevance problem through a better delivery mechanism. The distribution, the targeting, the timing, are not the core problem here. It’s what we put inside the pipes that is currently at fault.
But let’s you have fixed your relevance problem and that you deem yourself ready to broadcast? Then you need to respect the attention of your audience even more.
One form of respect was aiming to be relevant in the first place. But it won’t be enough. I believe the message also needs to reach the right amount of compression.
Compression -> Transmission
Compression to enable transmission is the meaning I give to the term memetic (and I agree it is a very personal definition).
Show your audience you value their time as much as they do by compressing your message (time and attention being synonymous here).
Now, compressing does not mean making things shorter or simpler.
It means “taking the time” so the recipient of your message does not have too.
“I apologize for such a long letter – I didn’t have time to write a short one.”
Said Blaise Pascal (or Mark Twain, or Einstein, you know how quote attribution works on the Internet).
Taking the time to package, compress, refine your message is the ultimate form of respect of attention.
Compression is an art and you will get it wrong most of the time. At least I do.
But I believe that simply trying to get it right, the process itself, will already make the attention economy a bit more livable, breathable.
Hell, if there are enough of us aiming for that kind of respect, trying to take the time while aiming for relevancy?
We might shift from Attention Economy to Attention Ecology.
Cognitive Sovereignty
What about people “paying” attention? What about most of us?
Relevance and Respect are two questions, filters, that can help us too.
Make no mistake, I am not saying that people are fully responsible for their shrinking attention span, like some are trying to put all of the weight of climate change on the shoulders of consumers.
Your attention is being targeted by giants with close to unlimited ressources. I won’t shy away from calling it a war.
But there has to be a something we can do. Some space we can carve out. Attention enclaves we can create and defend.
We too, media consumers, should ruthlessly apply the relevance and respect filters to our information diet.
We need to declare sovereignty over our cognitive space.
We need to target this attention problem from both ends. The producer and the consumer.
This is what Memetic Drift is about.
Work in progress
You might have noticed the word “pledge” on the homepage.
By publishing this page, I take this Relevance and Respect pledge, and I will do my honest best, to create and defend worthy attention enclaves.
And if you read this, I hope you will too.