What is the 'cactus analogy' for thinking about attention and marketing?

Think of attention as water and yourself as a plant. In the 1970s with just three TV networks, you could be a delicate flower—there was plenty of water (attention) to go around. Now with information abundance, attention is scarce, so you need to evolve into a cactus. A cactus can get more out of a much smaller volume of water than any other plant. Some cacti in the Atacama desert can absorb enough moisture from fog to survive six months. That’s how you need to approach attention—assume it will be hard to come by, so get extremely efficient at extracting maximum value from whatever attention you do receive. Don’t just focus on getting more attention; focus on becoming better at converting the attention you have.

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Asked by general teaching point · Answered by Patrick Shanahan · art-marketing-podcast · 2021-02-20