BoSacks Speaks Out: What Would Bob Hoffman Say?

BoSacks Speaks Out: What Would Bob Hoffman Say?

I have been reading and publishing Bob Hoffman for years.

I consider him one of advertising’s great curmudgeons, and I mean that as a compliment.

Hoffman has made a career out of poking holes in fashionable marketing theories, exposing questionable metrics, and reminding advertisers that consumers generally do not spend nearly as much time thinking about brands as marketers imagine they do.

I agree with most of his positions.

So when I read J. Walker Smith’s Time Matters Most, I found myself wondering almost immediately:

What would Bob Hoffman say about this?

Smith argues that what marketers want most is consumers’ time. Likes, shares, comments, browsing, engagement, attention, fandom, even love are presented as manifestations of that increasingly valuable commodity.

It is an interesting argument.

But I think Hoffman would start sharpening his knives.

Not because attention doesn’t matter. Hoffman has argued repeatedly that getting attention is one of advertising’s fundamental jobs.

But attention and time are not the same thing.

And I suspect Hoffman would object even more strongly to the assumption that longer engagement necessarily means better advertising.

Modern marketing has become remarkably good at measuring activity. We can count clicks, views, time spent, shares, likes, completion rates, interactions, and dozens of other behaviors.

Hoffman’s question would probably be much simpler:

Did the advertising work?

Did people notice it?

Did they remember the brand?

Did it make the product more distinctive?

Did it help sell anything?

Those questions sound almost primitive compared with today’s dashboards, but that is precisely Hoffman's point. The advertising business has a tendency to confuse things that are measurable with things that are meaningful.

A consumer spending three minutes with branded content may look terrific on a spreadsheet. But if the consumer cannot remember who produced it five minutes later, exactly what did those three minutes accomplish?

Meanwhile, somebody can see a great ad for ten seconds and remember it for decades.

Think of “Where’s the Beef?”

Think of “Just Do It.”

Think of the Marlboro Man, whether you approve of the product or not.

Those ideas did not require consumers to develop a relationship with the brand, join a community, participate in a conversation, or spend twenty minutes interacting with branded content.

They got noticed.

They were remembered.

That is a very different definition of successful advertising.

I also suspect Hoffman would challenge the notion that consumers particularly want to spend meaningful amounts of time with most brands.

Marketers may want engagement.

Consumers mostly want toothpaste, cars, insurance, hamburgers, sneakers, and whatever else they happen to be buying.

That may sound cynical, but Hoffman’s great contribution to advertising has always been his willingness to ask whether the industry actually understands ordinary consumers, or whether it has simply fallen in love with its own theories about them.

And that is why I found myself thinking about him while reading Smith’s essay.

Smith may be right that time is becoming more valuable to consumers.

But perhaps the lesson for advertisers is not that they must capture more of it.

Perhaps the lesson is exactly the opposite.

Respect people’s time. Get their attention. Say something memorable. Then get out of the way.

A consumer can spend five minutes with your content and remember absolutely nothing about your brand.

Another consumer can see a brilliant advertisement for ten seconds and remember it twenty years later.

Which ten seconds would you rather own?

I have a pretty good idea how Bob Hoffman would answer.