“How little do I need to care about you to make you care about me?”

Renting attention will only get you so far. Here’s how to start to owning it.

A simple question

When a brand decides they want to speak to an audience, they face a simple question: rent the audience or own the audience?

Renting an audience is when you do something to get attention.

Owning an audience is when people pay attention because of what you do.

Renting an Audience

Deciding whether to rent or to own isn’t a hard question. It doesn’t have a right answer. It doesn’t have a wrong answer. But most brands forget to even ask.

Most brands are accustomed to renting an audience with media, and owning an audience with product. This makes sense. A product company makes products. They don’t know how to make audiences, so they rent them.

A press release is renting an audience.

A mention in a publication or on TV is renting an audience.

Programmatic advertising is renting an audience.

You pay the rent with the cost of producing the press release, or talking to the reporter, or distributing the advertisement…