Marketing Is Noticing

I was scrolling LinkedIn yesterday. Past rubbish posts and terrible ads. Almost every fourth post is an ad now.

It got me thinking about what's been normalised.

Most advertising is designed to interrupt us.

The TV commercial that blasts at twice the volume. The pre-roll ad that makes you hunt for the skip button. The pop-up covering the article you're reading.

These advertisers assume if you can't ignore them, you'll eventually pay attention.

But there's another way.

It’s noticing.

Noticing your customer just became a parent. Noticing the frustration in a Reddit thread. The coffee shop that remembers you take oat milk. The brand that responds to your tweet with actual humanity.

Noticing is generosity disguised as attention.

Shouting is what you do when you haven't done the work. When you haven't studied your customer closely enough to know what matters. When you're hoping volume will compensate for relevance.

Noticing requires patience. It requires paying attention when there's no immediate payoff. Caring about the small stuff most people dismiss.

You can't buy that kind of attention. 

You have to earn it.

3 things that made me think about attention this week:

1. LinkedIn turning into a slot machine of ads. My thumb scrolls fast. My brain doesn’t debate it. It just moves on. Interruption isn’t persuasive anymore, it’s exhausting.

2. The posts I actually save are rarely the loud ones They're calm, useful, human. The kind that feel like someone thought about me before hitting publish. (I share these with my community.)

3. The barista who remembered my order on my second visit 24 hours after my first. No loyalty program. No “customer journey.” Just a person paying attention. (Also, one of the best double-shot lattes I've had!)