Eyeballs vs. hearts-and-minds marketing - A blog by Peter Korchnak

When prompted to define sustainable marketing, I often use the contrast between eyeballs and hearts-and-minds marketing.

Eyeballs marketing aims to reach as many people with as many touches as possible on the company’s terms. Eyeballs marketing knows it takes a number of times to just get its message registered and remembered, not to mention acted upon. Its drive for quantity serves to lower the cost per impression or thousand views. Eyeballs marketing is anumbers game.

Eyeballs marketing pushes. Initiative comes from the company, and is directed toward the customer as the intended respondent. Eyeballs marketing is good at generating demand. It goes for the hard sell.

Eyeballs marketing interrupts your attention to get its point across – hence the label interruption marketing. Think advertising, commercials, cold calls, telemarketing, direct mail, spam, billboards, sales promotions, guerilla tactics, and so on.

Eyeballs marketing interrupts what interests you: You want landscape? Here’s a billboard. You want a show? Here’s a commercial.

Eyeballs marketing is unidirectional. It speaks in terms of target groups, channels, touchpoints, funnels, campaigns and other military terminology.

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