Stresstetainment

 The average person works about 8 hours a day – facing daily stress, timings, clients, deadlines, meeting, the whole works! Afterwards, he comes home to relax, have dinner, enjoy time with his loved ones and entertain himself for the little time he has left in the day. What are his options? Basically something like this:

- Watch an episode from his favorite series – Desperate Housewives, Lost, Heroes, House, Kyle XY, Grey’s Anatomy, Nip/Tuck, The Simpsons, Family Guy, South Park, etc… - after all, that’s what everybody’s been talking about lately at the office;

- Play one of those videogames he’s been keeping in the shelves for the past 6 months – for either the Computer, the PS2 or PS3 or PSP, the Nintendo Wii or DS, or even the XBOX360;

- Do a movie update – Pirates of the Caribbean, Spider Man, Fantastic Four, 300, The Simpsons Movie, Ratatouille, Shrek 3, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Transformers, Die Hard 4.0, etc… - or he could rent one, if only he could choose one;

- Catch up on his reading – either see the various bookmarked internet websites he’s been trying to keep track of, or one of the 10 advised books on Amazon with an average of 200 pages each, or just the Newspaper;

- Listen to those songs everybody is listening to now – he probably wonders what happened to Take That by now…

- Or he could just watch TV – one of the 40000 channels available, with different perspectives on the same subject and news.

So, the major question is: what to pick? What is a person to do with these many options?

Welcome to the Stresstetainment, a new form of stress born from the over-exposure to too many sources of entertainment at once. We have too many engaging and important options to fit in the small amount of free time we have each day and on the weekend – and of course, considering the average married man with two kids, this means even less free time.
The worst about this new form of stress is peer pressure. We aren’t just supposed to entertain ourselves with these options – if we want to make part in any conversation in this day and time, we have to know what’s going on. The problem is: too much is going on at the same time. Not only that, but the audiences are completely fragmented – instead of a common ground knowledge that everyone shared with the TV massification, the increasing options gave birth and were born from the emerging and highly demanding niches. If a few years ago we’d all share the latest episode of Dallas that came on last night on the TV, now we’re all talking about what each did, a Babel Tower of Information. Of course I’m not siding with Dominique Wolton’s perspective on the Internet or the New Media, but one thing he is right – the TV as a main and almost only source of information served to create a general opinion and taste that you could rely on to be in line with your brethrens – even if you did have other sources of information and entertainment, at least the main one had the same broadcast for everyone. We didn’t have much choice at the time, did we?
Why is this important to the Marketeers? Because not only are we affected by this kind of stress as we have to understand that the consumer is drowning in it. So, we have two paths to consider when developing a strategy:
KISS – Basically, a “keep it short and simple” strategy respects the fact that the consumer doesn’t have enough time to actually waste on a big, involving campaign that demands more than 2 minutes of interaction with the brand. Just make something with a big bang impact – something that starts small but actually makes a difference in those few minutes. The consumer will thank you for not making him understand the new mechanic or concept behind that innovative new campaign that is offering a fabulous bottle cap opener. A good example is the Levi’s 501 Staying True microsite – Simple, trendy and downright personal, with a touch of disruptive.

Rising up to the Challenge – If the concept is strong enough, then probably a KISS strategy is too simple and will kill its effect. So a whole different and involving experience can be approached, requiring the consumer to actually spend more than the time he has on the campaign. But remember – this campaign will be competing against the list above. So, it has to be something really good and involving. A good example is the Volvo C30 Campaign - disruptive, strong, engaging and filled with stuff to see and discuss the next day.

In the end, this is what consumers are asking – don’t make me think unless you think it’s really worth it! I could go on about this topic forever, but I actually have a few shows I’m missing and need to see right away…