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We are still seeing the effects of the pandemic come to fruition, but one thing is very clear: We are all feeling more disconnected. The resulting epidemic of loneliness is well documented by health professionals, with 52% of Americans reporting that they feel lonely and 47% saying their relationships aren’t meaningful.
According to US Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy, “Loneliness is far more than just a bad feeling; it harms both individual and societal health. It is associated with a greater risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, stroke, depression, anxiety and premature death.” The mortality impact of social disconnection is comparable to mortality caused by smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day. There is even greater than that associated with obesity and physical inactivity.
As marketers, we often rely on technology and data to shape our current and future channel planning strategies: programmatic media helps us buy audiences, retail media helps us find people to market for our products and social media helps us target people based upon vast amounts of walled garden data.
But when something as profound as a pandemic occurs, it’s also just as important to take a step out of the minutiae and look at more macro-human trends to inform our media investments.
Bigger than the attention economy
There are several media channels are the channels enjoying steep growth trajectories and they help everyone feel less lonely and more connected.
The channels that are making people feel more connected to human emotion, real and meaningful conversations and shared live experiences are podcasts, live shopping, gaming, Reddit and subscriber-based content platforms like Medium and Substack.
While there has been a lot of industry discussion around using “attention” as a planning KPI for media, marketers don’t need to capture attention; they need to show up and contribute to these environments where people find companionship and connection. The channels beneficial to everyone’s mental health will only continue to scale in reach and popularity as people move away from other channels that don’t have the same benefit.