Use These 5 Drivers to Make People Actually Care About Your Brand

Marketers love to throw the term “engagement” around like it’s some kind of magic spell. Just create more content, fire off more emails and boom — customers will line up. Except, they don’t. The reality? Human attention is the most valuable and scarce resource out there. Traditional volume-based marketing, such as blasting out more ads, posts and emails, doesn’t work anymore. Research shows it now takes an average of eight touchpoints to make a sale, and most of those touchpoints only frustrate people. Consumers are tuning out, and that’s why marketers need a smarter playbook.

So, what can marketers do to make people lean in? The answer lies in five primary drivers:

1. Entertainment: Increase engagement by making the experience enjoyable

People don’t just want content; they want a show. Whether it’s the genius of a campaign that went viral — think the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge or brands hijacking meme culture (remember Bernie’s mittens?) entertainment is a surefire way to keep people engaged. Look at the success of Pit Viper, somehow making 90s-style sunglasses a huge business empire through its sarcastic, irreverent form of humor. If your marketing doesn’t have an element of fun, you’re losing out.

Research proves humor can be a powerful attention grabber. A study by Oracle indicates that 90% of consumers are more likely to remember ads that are funny, and 72% would choose a brand that uses humor over a competitor. Yet, 85% of business leaders still shy away from delivering humor because they don’t feel they have the data insights to do so successfully.

Tip: Audit your campaigns and ask where you can inject surprise, wit or drama. Even a small tweak, like playful copy or a quirky visual, can transform otherwise forgettable content. The goal isn’t to crack a joke; it’s to create a moment worth remembering.

2. Education: Deliver practical information that drives informed decisions

Consumers are hungry for knowledge, but only if it’s packaged right. They don’t want lectures; they want quick takeaways, tips, or hacks that solve problems right away. Look at how brands like HubSpot or Neil Patel’s marketing empire use educational content to build credibility, or the way in which mattress brand Casper built its brand around quirky marketing content and the topic of sleep and wellness.

Informative content has the most sway over purchase decisions. So, if your brand can teach something valuable in a way that’s easy to consume, you’ve earned attention. The trick is knowing what type of educational content will resonate, which is exactly where consumer insights come into play to help you figure out what kind of knowledge actually resonates. And when people feel like they’ve contributed to that story, when you show them how their feedback shaped something real, it creates a genuine sense of connection.

Tip: Distill your expertise into quick, clear, attention-grabbing lessons that people can apply today. Think checklists, quick demos or short how-to videos.

3. Social clout: Enable users to share value and expand your reach organically

Most people want to look good online. Whether it’s retweeting a clever insight, sharing a cause they care about or showing off a brand they love, social capital drives behavior. The brands that understand this create content people want to share because it makes them look good in the process — and creates loyalty while they’re at it. Brands such as Fenty Beauty and Apple, for instance, with their “Shot On iPhone” campaign, make good use of “social proof” to bolster their marketing efforts. Or take the fact that Coca-Cola’s “Share a Coke” initiative boosted sales in the U.S. by more than 2% if you need more proof around the effectiveness of such a strategy.

Sharing can mean much more than instant gratification; many share milestones that represent time invested in the real world — for example, participation with a charitable organization, progress on fitness goals, business promotions and more.

Tip: Don’t just encourage sharing, design for it. Add easy share buttons, highlight user content, and create templates that make your audience look good when they spread your message

4. Sense of Accomplishment: Use progress milestones to keep users coming back

Apps like Duolingo, Peloton and even LinkedIn use progress bars, streaks and badges to tap into something hardwired: the rush of achieving, no matter how small the win. The ramifications of this sense of engagement is explored by researchers keen to know how this aspect of motivational behavior really works. From personal experience, I know it starts early. I still remember the thrill of earning a sticker on an assignment in grade school, even when my score wasn’t great. That little reward gave me a confidence boost. Fast-forward a few years, and I was playing Contra on my old Nintendo. After beating the final boss, you’d escape the island in a helicopter as it blew up behind you: pure 80s glory. And you better believe I played again just to relive that feeling. These little moments of progress, recognition, and reward keep us coming back. The best marketing taps into that same psychology. It’s not just about selling, it’s about helping people feel like they did something today that mattered, even if it was just sharing a milestone or leveling up.

Tip: Add visible progress markers, challenges, or milestones to your customer experience. Even small acknowledgements, like a “you’ve unlocked this” message, tap into that hardwired need for achievement

5. Incentives and rewards: Because sometimes, people just want free stuff

Let’s be real, sometimes attention can be bought. But the smartest brands make rewards feel earned, not handed out. Starbucks’ rewards program is a prime example: it turns coffee into a game, where the more you spend, the more exclusive the perks. Marketers need to think beyond the usual “20% off” playbook and create rewards that actually feel valuable. Done well, loyalty programs can build loyalty, increase sales, and drive long-term engagement and retention – with a study showing that 66% of consumers say the ability to earn rewards changes their spending behavior, with this behavior often resulting in a higher average transaction value.

Of course, that only works if the rewards actually matter to your audience. And that’s where research comes in. After spending my career helping brands understand their customers, I’ve seen firsthand that the most successful programs aren’t built on trends or CMO hunches. They’re built from real conversations with customers. Whether you’re Louis Vuitton or Walmart, the challenge is the same: figure out which of the five drivers matter most to your audience (sometimes it might be all five), and build rewards around that. When you understand your customers deeply, you’ll get it right and create a reason for people to keep coming back.

Tip: Design rewards people actually care about. Ask your customers directly: what perks feel like a win to them? Use that input to shape your program so it feels earned, not generic.

Reclaiming consumer attention with purpose

I wanted to write this article because I can clearly see, as a consumer, that many brands aren’t leveraging the tactics above. Instead, marketing has become a blunt instrument: blast enough emails, post enough content, and hope something sticks. The numbers don’t lie: engagement rates are dropping, open rates are plummeting, and consumers are tuning out. And now AI is adding to the noise, guessing what we care about, and trying to make us feel heard. That makes these five drivers even more important. Done with intention, they cut through the clutter and create genuine connections in a world where AI will only keep raising the volume.

Marketers need to get back to the fundamentals. Instead of relying on brute-force tactics, they need to intentionally embrace these five drivers to create experiences that people actually want to engage with. And to find out which drivers will resonate with your audiences, stop skipping the most critical step: comprehensive consumer insights programs that employ research techniques that deliver authentic, quality data.

Before you launch another campaign, pause. Ask your customers what really matters, listen to their answers, and build your strategy around those insights. It’s time to stop treating marketing like a volume game and start treating it like an attention game, because that’s the only currency that matters.

Marketers love to throw the term “engagement” around like it’s some kind of magic spell. Just create more content, fire off more emails and boom — customers will line up. Except, they don’t. The reality? Human attention is the most valuable and scarce resource out there. Traditional volume-based marketing, such as blasting out more ads, posts and emails, doesn’t work anymore. Research shows it now takes an average of eight touchpoints to make a sale, and most of those touchpoints only frustrate people. Consumers are tuning out, and that’s why marketers need a smarter playbook.

So, what can marketers do to make people lean in? The answer lies in five primary drivers:

1. Entertainment: Increase engagement by making the experience enjoyable

People don’t just want content; they want a show. Whether it’s the genius of a campaign that went viral — think the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge or brands hijacking meme culture (remember Bernie’s mittens?) entertainment is a surefire way to keep people engaged. Look at the success of Pit Viper, somehow making 90s-style sunglasses a huge business empire through its sarcastic, irreverent form of humor. If your marketing doesn’t have an element of fun, you’re losing out.

Research proves humor can be a powerful attention grabber. A study by Oracle indicates that 90% of consumers are more likely to remember ads that are funny, and 72% would choose a brand that uses humor over a competitor. Yet, 85% of business leaders still shy away from delivering humor because they don’t feel they have the data insights to do so successfully.

Tip: Audit your campaigns and ask where you can inject surprise, wit or drama. Even a small tweak, like playful copy or a quirky visual, can transform otherwise forgettable content. The goal isn’t to crack a joke; it’s to create a moment worth remembering.