Every good marketer knows that the most important part of their pitch is their opener. So here’s mine: If you read through this entire article, I’ll tell you how to block notifications from Facebook events.
I knew that would attract your attention. After all, the next time you check your Facebook you’re going to receive about 10-15 notifications, and all of them are going to be the new theater show/acapella concert/club fundraiser/movie screening/diversity forum/sorority philanthropy event/whatever other publicity event going on by the seemingly thousands of student groups around here. So after you get sick of that, you’ll go ahead and check your email, only to be faced with dozens of emails lazily forwarded by your Greek or dorm president about the same events you just looked at on Facebook. You’re getting annoyed now, so you take a break from your computer and walk to the Rock. Of course, then you’re faced with dozens upon dozens of ground flyers, all begging for your attention in obnoxious rows lining up your pathway from the Arch, and in case that wasn’t enough, right when you get to the Rock you’ll have to prepare for the barrage of quarter sheets thrown at your face by eager students and stuffed into your pockets as future garbage.
In the advertising world, we talk a lot about the unstoppable rise of the attention economy. This is known as the inability to capture audiences in a world where our senses are inundated with far too much, and it’s far too difficult to be able to actually devote our full attention to all of it.
The theory holds in our university. Ask yourself: How many of the flyers and Facebook events have you really noticed these days? Do you realize there’s a theater show happening at the Rock this week, or that Japan Club just had a huge cultural festival last Sunday, or that it’s even Happiness Week? And those are only three of what seem like the hundreds of student events this quarter.
It doesn’t really seem like anything is working anymore to grab our attention. Throughout the quarter, I’ve observed students become more and more jaded from the daily and unavoidable waves of marketing around them. I remember one friend of mine even admitting to me, “I deleted this person from Facebook today because they keep inviting me to too many events.”
The point of good advertising is that it grabs the consumer’s attention and sticks in their mind like a parasite, but that takes creativity, new methods of outreach and proper placing and timing. Most importantly, it means spectacle, and what spectacle can be found in the marketing campaigns these days? Especially when they all follow the same formula of smearing the ground with flyers, inviting the same 300 Northwestern friends to a Facebook event and having members stand awkwardly by student buildings to shout at passing students
Everyone knows how it’s done, and everyone does it. Problem is, everyone’s also sick of it...
The worst part is that this inundation of marketing is creating an even more divided student community. Many students just actively ignore as many campaigns as they can, missing out on events and fundraisers they may actually enjoy simply because they’re so sick of hearing about them.
It seems that the only real way to get anyone to start paying attention again is through meaningful and interesting content. Maybe if the flyers themselves got more interesting, we would possibly be more interested in what they’re saying. The obvious example I have to point to here is the “I Agree With Markwell” campaign, the single most effective marketing I’ve ever seen on this campus. The tagline’s mysterious overtone, the overabundant presence of flyers and spray paint all over campus, and the use of walking and breathing advertising in the forms of those bright orange t-shits were organized perfectly. And it worked. “Markwell” became the hot topic on campus, beating student apathy and annoyance and becoming a marketing campaign that everyone had its eyes on. Even today, it remains as NBN’s second most viewed article of the year.
Maybe it’s time for student groups to shake things up. Maybe the only way to get anyone to care anymore is through introducing powerful new ideas and beautiful design in advertising. Maybe it also takes more creative planning in the campaigns themselves, interacting with students more through social media contests for iPads or booths with free food at the Rock.
Advertising on campus needs to start evolving if it ever wishes to be noticed again. Because right now, it’s all coming down to just another ripped up ground flyer in front of Norris.
So here’s your reprieve. When you get invited to a Facebook event, click if you’re attending or not. Then a small gear will pop up in the corner, and then hit that and click “Turn Off Notifications.” Voila! That’s one less notification now.