Audience engagement is one of the subjects always under discussion among media people involved in digital out-of-home audio-video media, what we call captive-audience media in this blog because it involves intrusive content pushed out to people who haven’t asked for it.
Media executives typically tout studies they’ve commissioned showing how much their content engages people, and they deploy cool words like “trafficking,” “aggregation,” and “lifestage” in talking about out-of-home media.
I always get suspicious when companies use words like “media currency,” “thought leading,” and “psychographic” to talk about what they’re doing, because words like that are meant to obscure, not enlighten, kind of like the military using “vertical insertion” to talk about commandos parachuting behind enemy lives or “decommissioned aggressor quantum” to talk about dead enemy soldiers.
In their press releases and white papers, captive-audience media companies tout how much people notice and are engaged by their content. The “notice” part I can understand, because biologically we can’t help but notice moving pictures on a screen, especially when coupled with audio. Researchers say this media commands our “involuntary attention” in the same way that a leopard sneaking through the grass in the serengeti involuntarily attracts our attention when we’re out there hunting and gathering. Focusing on things that move and make noise around us has helped us survive as a species, and now it’s helping media companies launch platforms that attract advertisers.
The “engaged” part I’m not so sure about. Yes, I know there are impressive looking reports and stuff out there showing how much captive-audience TV networks like the one in Wal-Mart please us, but I’m just not sure “engaged” means the same thing to me as to a media executive who’s trying to convince advertisers that these plaforms are a good thing.
Here’s a quick quiz. Is the person below, who talks about buying flannel sheets at Wal-Mart, engaged?
“The Wal-Mart I went to has television screens hanging from the ceiling throughout the store. Every single one is playing commercials for items you can buy at Wal-Mart. They all have the sound turned on . . . . Even at the cash register, while still waiting on line, a flat screen TV pointed at the line played a different stream of commercials, conflicting with the nearby ceiling television. . . . I guess I get what I deserve for shopping there. These advertisements were in annoying places. (I did get a measure of revenge, however. While walking past the electronics department, I used my TV-B-Gone to turn off half a bank of televisions on display. It was unfortunate that my TV-B-Gone wouldn’t shut off any of the ceiling TVs.)”—Maria Langer
Maria has definitely noticed the TVs. But is she engaged?
How about this person?
“Those damn TVs are one of the biggest reasons I avoid going in [Wal-Mart]. The whole damn store is loud and makes me very irritable. . . . I’ll pay a couple extra cents for peace.” –ib
In my book, engagement occurs only when two parties mutually and willingly come together, as in an engagement for marriage.
Wal-Mart TV strikes me as invoving a different kind of engagement—the kind in which my girlfriend’s father is pointing a shotgun at me. I guess in this case I’ll enter into an engagement with her.
Wal-Mart’s free to do whatever it wants, of course. But there’s engagement and then there’s bludgeoning. When I turn on the TV at home and choose to watch a program, I’m engaged with the content; when I step into a Wal-Mart to buy flannel sheets and have my involuntary-attention button pushed, I’m bludgeoned by the content.
One industry analyst calls out-of-home media “imperative” media. In a report that mentions his remarks, “imperative” media is defined as media that garners and compels attention when presented at “points of intention.”
You could write an essay unpacking those terms, but the short of it is, in my opinion, the terms are gobbeldygook for media that pushes your involuntary-attention button. Industry supporters can talk in circles around the issue all they want, but all they’re really saying is, you’re going to consume this content whether you want to or not, and we’re going to couch it in business jargon to give the impression that somehow you’ve made a choice to consume it.
You go to Wal-Mart to buy flannel sheets, not watch TV commercials. The TV commercials are the price you pay to get the discount or the selection or the convenience or whatever else Wal-Mart offers, so your only choice is whether you’re willing to pay that price. If you choose not to pay that price, the opportunity cost falls on you to find some other place at which to buy your sheets.
I can’t speak for Maria, but I think there’s a good chance she’ll be willing to pay that opportunity cost to buy her flannel sheets somewhere else next time.
Note: Media by Choice has been online for 10 months now and has generated 11,270 views, or 1,127 views a month on average. The top two posts are On noise, a judge who gets it (2,661 views) and Boom cars: the constitutionality of nose thumbing (1,598 views). Thank you to all of our readers.
