People are tired of so much information in their daily lives. Unilateral interactions with brands, an excess of content that does not align with their profile, and too many news stories are, more than ever, creating a need to escape this reality. Although this movement may be harmful to brands, it can also be strategically driven by marketing to help users relax their minds and at the same time enable a financial return for companies – a strategy known in the market as escapism economy.
When asked why they want to escape reality, 42% of Brazilians said they are looking to escape “their own mind”, and 34% justified this movement as a result of “the news”, according to a global study by McCann Worldgroup – an excess of information that encompasses all the online interactions that users come across, daily, not only from news portals, but also from paid advertisements carried out by a series of companies.
The lack of this care by a brand can be extremely harmful to its prosperity and profitability. According to the global study by McCann Worldgroup, as proof of this, 44% of consumers want brands to understand their frustrations, along with 56% who want them to provide dreams. Those who do not follow and meet these demands will surely lose market share, harming their image, reputation, and continuity.
The data presented in the study show the importance of distractions as a healthy way to cope with daily stress. And, in this scenario, a good marketing strategy is capable of finding ways to interact with this audience in a less aggressive and one-sided manner, for the development of more assertive, relevant, and non-excessive campaigns and message transmission. In other words, explore this theme of escapism in your interactions with people, aiming not only for a sale but also for the creation of a bond.
According to the McCann study, this escapism economy already moves US$ 10 trillion, and is expected to reach US$ 13.9 trillion in 2028, transforming marketable products into moments of distraction that not only help people who are going through a time of great stress, but also help brands create sales opportunities that bring better internal results and greater satisfaction to their consumers.
To achieve these goals, advertainment, storytelling, branded content, product placement, guerrilla marketing and UGC strategies have proven effective in this regard, in terms of bringing companies and their products and presenting them in creative ways, so that they gain special attention from people simply by being different from the ordinary.
Use these tools and planning with strategy and creativity, instead of simply developing simple and mass-produced ads without intelligence behind them, which ultimately fails to attract, retain, and engage the target audience. If it is necessary to invest more time than usual to create assets that truly attract attention and build brand recall for your brands, do it! The market, for a few years now, has been showing signs that "marketing that doesn't look like marketing" is one of the most effective in delivering results.
Creating a connection with an audience that is exhausted from so much information in their lives is really difficult. After all, when a person ends up having a bad experience with your company, that feeling persists for a long time, capable of harming decades of sales. But once this bond is created, it becomes strong enough to transform thelifetime valueof the customer and the reputation of the brand compared to its competitors.
