This is a new series in which authors/creators share some of the ideas and inspirations that collide and recombine in their own work.
Kicking things off is Paid Attention author Faris Yakob, who shares links unravelling attention, the foundational idea of advertising, the a in AIDA, the thing we pour into the top of the funnel. But, he cautions, what it is is....complicated, like many aspects of human cognition.
FY: It was reading this article about Apollo Robbins that gave me the idea for the book. I had been building a book of my thoughts on advertising for some time, but I didn't have a theme. Then I read this and something suddenly fell into place, 2 ideas happened in my head at the same time and became a new one: “It’s all about the choreography of people’s attention,” he said. “Attention is like water. It flows. It’s liquid. You create channels to divert it, and you hope that it flows the right way.”
FY: This piece by Paul Feldwick felt like the most important thing written about advertising in a long time when I read. It both echoed and shaped what I'd been reaching towards about communication, that our brains like to think they are rational and that this metacognitive error shapes so much of how we approach advertising. [BONUS I'm now reading his book The Anatomy of Humbug and it's brilliant.]
FY: I have always somewhat intuitively used science fiction to help me think about things - I believe to be the last remaining vestige of the "novel of ideas". SnowCrash helped me understand the internet, but this one inspired an image, which I quote in my book, of a futuristic Times Square like arms race for attention.
FY: I've been working on my ideas about recombinant creativity on the Genius Steals blog for years. This is a great documentary on the same.
FY: This ad from 1961 highlights several attention ideas in a fun, simplistic way. Endless repetition - of the mere exposure effect, and new&improved. New and improved is an attention hack - as the ad even points out something can't be NEW & IMPROVED. If it's improved it's not new. But our brains love things that we can trust - that haven't killed us before - and it loves novelty, so NEW&IMPROVED hacks it.
Faris is co-founder of Genius Steals, an itinerant strategy and innovation consultancy he started with his wife, Rosie. He is the author of Paid Attention, April 2015, and a contributing author of Digital State [2013] and What is a Brand? [2015], all published by Kogan Page. He was named one of ten modern day Mad Men by Fast Company but hopes he is less morally bankrupt than the television show characters. Despite living on the road, you can reliably find him on Twitter (@Faris) and on his blog: www.farisyakob.com. For more information on Genius Steals head to www.geniussteals.co
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