Rethinking the Concept of Consumer Intent

Further, intent is almost meaningless for a huge number of brand marketers who are either a) working in the very earliest stages of the funnel or b) supporting low-consideration products (i.e., soft drinks). How do we account for the differences found in consumers' "intent to engage"? The same way marketers have always leveraged "willingness" in the consumer psyche as opportunities to influence and sell. Think about items that line the checkout isle -- do you ever actually seek out the National Enquirer, stress balls or TicTacs? Think about ads above the urinal. Or TV for that matter. Get 'em while they're open to a conversation. This is the opportunity and it could not be truer than on the internet. As the medium evolves and time spent online increases, the user's "mode" is a critical ingredient to creating engagement. While social environments may not offer strong signals around purchase intent, they can be a fine place to generate time with a brand message. The key to making this media work more effectively is in understanding how and where to deliver brand experiences that consumers will willingly spend time with. Here's one critical implication: Within a site or online environment (i.e. social-networking site), a page is not a page is not a page. But CPM treats every page the same -- as an impression. The next evolution for internet advertising is brand marketing and brand advertising online is about spending time interacting with a message. It's time we started valuing inventory accordingly, not by impressions but by time spent. We call it cost per engagement, or CPE. Call it what you want, but if we really want to make it work for brand advertising, then we've got to get a new measure on value. Engagement is a great place to start.

Rethinking the Concept of Consumer Intent

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