Gary Sheynkman dot com

Another day, another attack on a buzzword…

The big buzzword around the advertising community is “disruption”. Disruptive campaigns rule the day. They jolt the consumer out of their ordinary lives and make them love your product.

My life is not ordinary. If you try to disrupt my extraordinary life, I will tune you out. Really. I have an amazing ability to completely ignore commercial messages. For that matter… I am not alone, so do most people these days.

Actually… let me clarify. Ignore is the wrong word. Ignoring is an active action. I simply do not register commercial messages unless I have a specific interest. The branding game has changed. He who yells the loudest in the room doesn’t win when the consumer has headphones.

The goal for brand managers then, is to spark interest that makes me actively seek the product out or listen to your story. Here is how:

• Quality: Its 2009, no one likes shit products. Just about every product category is saturated enough to never having to dead with bad products
• Humanity: I like people. I like talking to people that love and stand behind their product. I like people that make me believe.
• Awesomeness: Newsflash! If you haven’t read the about section… I am Generation Y. I need now, cool, easy to use, and did I mention now? Mind you the lack of now with a service is bad while with a product it could be a potential stimulus (my obsession with limited edition Court Victory Reebok Pumps is an example)

With these 3 values in mind, you can convert consumers into fans. To learn more about fans I highly suggest reading Bud Caddell’s take on the “fan economy”. I’m 100% on board with the thought pattern there … not to mention I am hugely jealous of Bud’s slide-making mojo.