Cole Heilborn (00:00):

Do you ever just feel tired and not in a lack of sleep, tired, but just tired with this digital world that we live in? I dunno about you, but this summer has been a very busy summer between raising two young kids, running the business, running the podcast, and an old house that has countless problems that seemingly need to be fixed. I feel burned out and tired, but I started to realize that I'm not the only one. I think everyone can attest to the fact of feeling this digital fatigue exhaustion with the digital world. And I think a lot of times people who work in creative or marketing, they feel it a lot because you live and breathe it. But I think to some extent, the general population, your audience probably feels it to some degree. Also, there's just this desire to disconnect, to get away, which leads me to a challenge for you as you're designing your next campaign, your next piece of branded content, your next piece of social content, ask yourself, is this truly going to add value to my audience's life?

(01:11):

Or am I simply just showing up, putting something out into the world that doesn't actually provide any value? Let me explain more. When it comes to consuming digital content, their options are endless, right? They can choose between Netflix, they can go to Reddit, they can go to a variety of social media pages, they can go to YouTube. There's so many things that people can choose to do with their time. And in this world of disruptive marketing, this world of disruptive advertising, which personally I kind of hate, I think it's the wrong approach. We need to be thinking about our audience. We need to be thinking about the content that we're creating for them, because we shouldn't be aiming to just disrupt. We should be aiming to provide value, to entertain, to know who they are emotionally, and then speak to them in an emotional way.

(02:04):

People crave depth to feel seen as to feel loved, and it might feel kind of woo woo or pie in the sky, but that's what great content is built around. They don't want to be advertised to. They don't want to be disrupted. They want to choose to engage with content that's interesting, that's educational, that's of value, that's entertaining, that gives them something. And when people are already tired and depleted and exhausted, why would they choose to consume content that doesn't provide value to them? It makes zero sense. And so next time you go to develop your next project, ask yourself, are we providing value to our audience? People are tired. Your audience doesn't care yet. You still have a job to do. So be creative. Take the risk. Get to know your audience emotionally. Figure out where they're spending their time, and then use creativity and emotion to solve real problems. The brands that are able to do that are the brands that are going to win.

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