“The world is too much with us,’’ poet William Wordsworth lamented in his Petrarchan sonnet. But how much is too much? The digital world has dissected us, opened up all our folds and stretched and pinned us on the table of reality. We are open to public view and are subjects of public discourse. Our bodies are our graffiti, our radio jockeys and our confidants to whom we disclose the problems which we otherwise don’t share.

There was a time when the mind had a 24x7 task of fulfilling the yawning gap between desire and reality. Beggars filled up their coffers in dreams and the weak terrorised the mighty in their personal mind games. Technology is fast filling the gap that imagination at one point of time used to do. Separation, distance, hunger to reach the object of desire are all part of the vocabulary of the past. The recent Tata Sky and 3G ads are illustrations of the shape of things to come. You can now move with your world wherever you go. What you like and what you love are never away from you. Lovers are not separated. The more the physical distance tries to intervene between them, the more the virtual world gulps down the gap.
Technology has put us on an all time high. It has led us to where even literature gives up. Literature cannot handle constant union. The moment union happens literature pulls down the curtain, the show ends. “And so they lived happily ever after”. In technology nothing ends, things only change — quitting the game is not allowed. Don’t think, just act, play, rush, kiss, hug, fight and when monotony desce-nds try a new partnership, start a new game.
Today’s mobile ads show lovers in a tight embrace checking out their next messages behind each other’s backs to start a new episode. This pattern is so addictive that it catches up in real life activity as well — at least the ads seem to portray that. Lovers look beyond each other in a restaurant to check out other young people and don’t bat an eyelid if they have to change their relationship status. The smell of a deodorant is good enough to change the mind of a girl about her boyfriend’s enga-gement proposal.
The irony is, in the digital era we are actually moving away from the so-called virtual world of yesteryears i.e the world of imagination. Love has lost its mysticism among lovers and is finding shelter in the world of robots and vampires and animals. Heroes have stopped singing songs for heroines. In the parks rabbits and squirrels do that! The thirst of love is replacing the thirst for blood in the vampires; when the men move away from the Maruti Estilo showroom robots fall in love and leave their mark in red.
The overload of connectivity has created amongst us a frenzy of catching up. We are fast being programmed to the thought that new things are happening in the world every second and to be disconnected is to fall behind and get drowned in the past. Some experts have called this syndrome FOMO — fear of missing out — a syndrome that finds expression in our continuous efforts to log in or check mail. Walk onto a railway platform, into an airport terminal, inside a train, bus or aircraft and people are desperately trying to log on to their laptops or latch on to their iPods; checking messages, calling parents, husbands, and lovers. Grown up, responsible people don’t even wait for the aircraft to stop and the pilot to turn off the seat belt sign before their mobiles are switched on. No wonder young friends call each other up late at night to find out whether they are awake or simply to say goodnight. We have all started suffering from a malady called the itch. The itch to update, the itch to catch up.
As a brand communicator what appears the most challenging task today is to cope with this never-ending, catching-up syndrome. How to tackle these frenzied and fickle consumers? Do we continue to build a brand the way we have been doing or find ways, like cartoon channel techniques, to churn out episode after episode a la Tom and Jerry? Is it possible to constantly feed the consumer with new brand stories and sustain his attention? How quickly should one change communication? Who will sustain the cost of change? What brand stickiness will bond this impatient lot with the brand? If brands don’t offer fodder for what is new, what is the latest, new entrants in the category will. In fact consumers themselves will search for new players. The search will pile up options and these in turn will trigger fresh problems — the agony of excess and a dilemma of choice. More tension, more search, more information. It is a vicious cycle — the fear of losing out, triggers connectivity and search. Search yields options that create confusion. There is no ready solution and answer to this problem.
Apple has worked out a solution which has worked for some time. “Keep your consumers guessing” is a model Steve Jobs has successfully practiced for quite a few years. Year after year there is a buzz around tech savvy consumers all asking the same question — What new product will come out of the Apple cauldron? It is not the brand’s equity but the brand’s ubiquity tomorrow that probably creates a difference and interest in the consumer’s mind. And mind you Apple is not churning out any new technology; in most cases it is repackaging an already existing one in an exciting user-friendly way. This route takes care of what is new and keeps the consumer engaged in the brand’s fold.
Some companies are trying to tackle the question of the agony of choice and work out ways to keep consumers reassured.
As more and more options are placed before us we feel the need for experts to guide us. Experts have invaded all walks of our lives today. As influencers in the consumer decision-making process friends or peers are fast losing their hold to specialists and experts. Gurus are the only people who know what is right and what is better. Starting from nursery teachers to physical instructors, and from beauticians to career counsellors, it is the era of experts. Every reality show has its own set of Gurus. Does your brand have experts? Sunsilk have seven. If yours still doesn’t have a think again.
What has to be done has to be done quickly; or are you thinking of a third solution? Whatever be the case, act now because your consumer may be sleeping with Suzuki but flirting with Ford as well!

The writer is VP, Consumer Insight & HFD (Human Futures Development), McCann Erickson India