According to Steinberg (2020:53-54), Shanon and Weaver—telecommunications workers enthused by solving signal transmission problems—devised a technical model of communication flows. Their model, however, couldn’t predict today’s cacophony.

Marketers now have more tools and platforms than ever, but the marketplace has become crowded. Competition for the customer’s eyeballs is constant. In today’s attention economy, audience focus is a contested and finite resource. Survival favours the most authentic, the boldest, and the best-funded campaigns aiming to hit sales and engagement metrics.

Given this noise, it can seem a challenge for brands to spend on marketing not informed by hard, quantitative data about their audience and habits.

Consumers bear the brunt of this reality daily. The onslaught is relentless; their attention spans are saturated by information overload before they even reach their desks at 9 AM. During their morning commute, they process traffic and weather reports on the radio, hard news via short-form videos in WhatsApp groups, and telecommunication billboards on the highway. Commercials interrupt their morning podcasts. Attention has become a commodity. No one should blame consumers, jaded by this bombardment, for unsubscribing without remorse from irrelevant email newsletters.

This contrasts sharply with the broadcast scarcity of the 1980s. Then, large corporations with big budgets dominated mainstream mass media—TV commercials, in-studio interviews, radio features, and full-page newspaper spreads. These channels were the primary sources of information and key reference points for purchasing decisions, from cars to holidays. This media dominance translated directly into lion’s share publicity and market control.

Since the advent of the internet and social media, however, smaller brands versed in digital marketing nuances can now compete by leveraging these very platforms. In today’s landscape, we must rely on science and quantitative data to inform campaigns. The quest to win hearts and minds in the interest of business often feels like a vast, expansionist journey.

The path forward is defined by a scarcity of customer attention, a precious, limited resource. To survive, brands must be deeply informed and intimately familiar with their customers’ taste and preferences.

The brands that thrive are those that have identified and carved out a niche. In an age of hyper-personalisation, where one size no longer fits all, success lies in tailoring products and messages. This deep understanding is rewarded with customer loyalty.

Ultimately, for a brand’s voice to be heard above the noise, it must move beyond shouting. Success requires a sensitivity to the customer’s reality, an acknowledgment that they are bombarded. In a world of infinite choice and finite attention, the brands that resonate will be those that recognise this exhaustion, use insight to add value rather than adding to the noise, and speak with the customer, not just at them. It is a shift from conquest to connection.

This article was first published on my substack.