• Pivot Post 3: Instant Gratification

    Posted on October 19th, 2010 by and currently 8 commenting.

    React to this subject as discussed at the conference: Instant Gratification

    Robbin Phillips:

    The average teenage girl sends 6 texts an HOUR. Wow. I have to admit I see texting as a quicker way to communicate. It’s instant gratification.  And I like that. I am not a patient person. Technology makes it possible to get just about any thing we want in a matter of moments. Most of us now expect communication to be fast.

    For brands I see this as the ultimate challenge and opportunity to be human.

    Gone are the days of carefully crafted responses to complaints and requests. In the Brains on Fire book, we share this thought:

    Take off your marketing hat.

    And I have to admit that thought crossed my mind over and over and over again as I sat among so many “marketers” for two days. IF we take off our marketing hats, what we have let left is a human being hat. And most people don’t have to learn how to be human. I think the skills most good marketers and leaders need now is soulfulness, a basis understanding of the golden rule, and a genuine ability to feel love and compassion for other humans. Squishy? Maybe. But I think that’s the beauty the demands of  technology have placed on all us.

    Eric Dodds:

    Mmm. What to say  about such a complex subject in so few words. First, I don’t think that the desire for instant gratification has changed, I think that technology has simply given it the most open venue it has ever seen.

    That said, our culture’s tech-charged instant gratification, like most things, is a double-edged sword. When I visited New York City without an iPhone, I enjoyed less of the city simply because I didn’t have ‘instant’ access to the amount of information about the things that surrounded me. Instant technology can be a wonderful tool. In many cases, though, I believe that it has opened the door for unrealistic expectations. The instantaneousness of technology gives you the feeling that you can get anything you want, right now. But that’s not how real life works, and it is definitely not how relationships work. They take time, hard work, and patience. Our desire for instant gratification is not neutral – it requires careful handling. And in today’s culture, I think that a lack of stewardship of instant technology produces negative consequences for both consumers and marketers.

  • http://jubiell.com Kai Druhl Internet Coaching

    Robbin, agreed, let’s take off the marketing hat. People like to buy from real people, relational marketing is in. Still, our relationship are business relationships. In the end, it is about selling a product/service as teh solution to a problem/need/desire, so that both parties benefit.

    Eric, agreed, for relationships, there can be no instant gratification. But for information, offered and consumed as a part of marketing, there can be, and there should be. Example from Internet direct marketing: deliver your lead bait right away on the return page, after optin.

    A valid expectation, and good if our customer actually takes the time to process the information. Unfortunately, some think that hopping from information to information will solve the problem. I think that this is where our responsibility as marketers ends.

  • http://www.barbaraling.com Barbara Ling, Virtual Coach

    A human being hat. What a blindingly simply, yet so often overlooked concept. Consider typical Internet marketing techniques of refusing to allow a visitor to leave a site without hitting them with 3 exit popups – would one truly do that in a real life conversation? I think not….

    This post is definitely a keeper, sharing it with my network!

  • tracy

    I think how we define ‘instant’ has changed. Remember when a facsimile machine (you know, a fax) seemed to allow business to move at lightning speed? Well, maybe you don’t remember, but I do. I also think that social media is changing the experience of being gratified. Can gratificiation occur from a tweet? Or a facebook page? Maybe. As with anything, it’s contextual. So we need to wear our human being hats and accessorize them with an openess to expanding our experience of what it means to be gratified – and when.

  • http://brainsonfire.com Eric Dodds

    Kai,

    Agreed. I am very thankful for much of the instant information available to me; it just makes life easier in some ways, doesn’t it? I think the temptation we fight is to ‘mechanize’ a company’s relationship with their customer.

    Thanks for sharing!

    –Eric

  • http://brainsonfire.com Eric Dodds

    Barbara,

    “Would one truly d that in a real life conversation?” Music to my ears:) Have you ever heard someone say, “If people talked to you like advertising talked to you, they’d get punched in the face.”?

    The internet is a very different medium, and we should treat it as such, but I think the point you make is very important: we can’t claim to want a ‘relationship’ with our customer and then treat them like a statistic.

    Thanks for joining us and appreciate the thoughts!

    –Eric

  • http://brainsonfire.com Eric Dodds

    Tracy,

    “Can gratificiation occur from a tweet? Or a facebook page? Maybe. As with anything, it’s contextual. So we need to wear our human being hats and accessorize them with an openess to expanding our experience of what it means to be gratified – and when.”

    What very, very thought provoking statements. I’m putting them in the ‘to think about’ category of my brain.

    Also, I love your point about definitions. What we mean by ‘instant’ and ‘gratify’ can completely change what we are talking about, and the same goes for context.

    Love thinking through this stuff, and there’s more on the way (thanks to you), as soon as Robbin and I can find our way out of the email and to-do items that piled up.

    As always, thank you so much for your thoughts!

    –Eric

  • http://spiritsentient.com Jason Fonceca

    I adore this post. What a great conversation to enlighten and uplift. Robbin the marketing/human hat line is gold, as is Eric your appreciation for tech/instant grat. is beautiful.

    I’d like to suggest that while it may be time to balance things out more, or focus on soulfulness (a-men, really, amen.) the two things, humanity/soulfulness + instant-gratification/tech DON’T have to be mutually exclusive. A solution is always available, and in the end, nothing need be sacrificed.

    Evolved+transformed perhaps, but not sacrificed :)

    Rock on.

  • http://brainsonfire.com Eric Dodds

    Jason,

    Thank you for the kind words – we love conversations like this. Technology and soulfulness can be a crazy balancing act, and I agree that they don’t have to be mutually exclusive. It’s less complicated when they are, but less valuable in the end.

    Rock on indeed, sir. Thanks for stopping by.

    –Eric