Attention Isn’t the Problem. Relevance Is

Every conference I attend eventually arrives at the same conclusion: people don’t have the attention span they once did. I’ve never been convinced. The same people who supposedly can’t concentrate will happily spend an entire Sunday watching a cricket Test match, binge a new series in one sitting, or listen to a two-hour podcast while driving home. They aren’t short of attention. They’re short of patience for things that don’t matter to them.

That’s an important distinction because I believe many brands are trying to solve the wrong problem.

Over the last two decades, communication has become a numbers game: more content, more platforms, more reels, more influencers and more campaigns. Somewhere along the way, we started believing that if we spoke often enough, someone would eventually listen. It hasn’t worked out that way.

Consumers have become remarkably good at filtering noise. They scroll past advertisements without even noticing them. They skip videos within seconds. They mute brands they once followed. Not because they dislike brands, but because they don’t have time for messages that add little value to their day. That isn’t an attention crisis. It’s a relevance crisis.

As communicators, we sometimes confuse visibility with importance. A campaign may generate a million views, trend for a day and even win an award. But ask yourself a simple question: has it changed what people think about the brand six months later? Most of the time, the answer is no.

The uncomfortable truth is that communication has become easier than ever. With AI, anyone can produce articles, videos, social posts and newsletters in minutes. The barriers to creating content have almost disappeared, which means content by itself is no longer an advantage.

If every brand has the ability to speak, then speaking more cannot be the strategy. Being worth listening to can. And that requires a different mindset.

It begins by accepting that consumers don’t wake up thinking about brands. They think about their own lives, their careers, families, finances, health and aspirations. Brands earn a place in that world only when they solve a problem, simplify an experience or contribute something meaningful. Everything else is interruption.

This is where I believe many organisations are getting community building wrong. A community is not created because a brand has a million followers or a busy social media page. Those are audiences. A community exists when people start talking to each other because of the brand, not just to the brand. When customers defend it, recommend it, contribute ideas, and feel they have a stake in its success, communication has moved beyond marketing. It has become a relationship.

Also read: Trust, Not Technology, Will Define India’s Digital Healthcare Future

The same applies to purpose. Every brand doesn’t need to take a position on every social issue. In fact, I would argue that most shouldn’t. Consumers have become exceptionally good at spotting borrowed purpose. They can tell the difference between conviction and a campaign.

Reputation is built less by what a company says and more by what it consistently does.

Looking ahead, I think the role of communication will change more in the next five years than it has in the previous twenty. Our job will no longer be to help brands speak louder. It will be to help them become more relevant to customers, employees, investors and society.

Relevance has a remarkable quality. It earns attention without asking for it.

The brands that will succeed in the coming decade won’t necessarily be the ones spending the most on advertising or producing the most content. They’ll be the ones people genuinely miss if they disappear tomorrow.

Perhaps that’s the question every leadership team should ask itself. Not, “How do we get more attention?” but, “Would anyone notice if we were gone?”

If the answer is uncertain, the problem isn’t attention. It’s relevance.

– Written by Mr. Jitendra Jha, a veteran PR professional with over two decades of experience. He is currently the Managing Director of 3M Mediaworks.