I’ve been reading Storynomics by Robert McKee and Thomas Gerace, and I was struck by something early on in the book:There’s a proven consumer revolt against advertising taking place, and it’s been happening for a long time.Rather than paraphrasing, I’ll just tell you exactly what they say...

“Since 2008, marketers have been tracking a phenomenon called Banner Blindness in which website visitors literally look around ads when browsing a page. Eye-tracking studies, which use technology to monitor what parts of a page a user actually views, initially identified it.A study by Infolinks found that, after being asked to recount the last ad they saw, only 14% of consumers could name the company, brand, or product, suggesting that businesses are wasting millions of dollars on ads that consumers don't remember.”

Now, it’s important to keep in mind the context of the book: it’s all about the value of storytelling in creating deep, authentic bonds between consumers and brands.The point isn’t to say that ads are bad, it’s just to highlight the drastic shift in consumer preferences for the benefit of businesses. And there’s an important distinction to remember when talking about Banner Blindness:People ignore page elements they perceive to be ads--whether correctly or incorrectly.That distinction is what I find most fascinating: these days, people are conditioned against things that look or feel like ads, even if they’re not. And yet they’re still visiting websites and blogs, opening emails, and scrolling through social media.So, there are a few important points to be derived from all of this:

• People prefer to be entertained and educated, not sold to
• They want content and stories, not just ads
• Ads aren’t bad, they just shouldn’t be your primary focus anymore
• Content can still be sales-driving, it just needs to be approached with a value-first philosophy--if it looks or feels like an ad, you’re going to lose people

Creating high-quality content isn’t just a “nice-to-have” anymore. It’s something consumers are demanding.And if you haven’t made it a key part of your marketing mix, there’s no better time than now to start.