The Rise of Chaos in an Attention Economy

As brands rebalance their focus from long-term brand building to short-term results, we’re seeing a trend of chaos marketing: bizarre, unhinged creative that may win people’s undivided attention but leave seasoned marketers going, “huh?” With young consumers responding more to these disjointed breakthroughs than the careful brand storytelling that defined the last decade, we’re witnessing a consequential shift from meaning economy to attention economy.

Enter: the Chaotic Brand

We all know where it started. TikTok, with its wild west ethos, has been a playground for brands to safely dabble in the bizarre for the last several years. From Nutter Butter's fever dreams of nonsense (now towering at 1.6M followers) to Marc Jacobs's long feed of frenetic content (often scoring millions of views), the platform has normalized "weird" and pushed creative boundaries.

But TikTok’s chaotic energy has infiltrated into traditional media. Take, for example, the new campaign for German Doner Kebab, which features unhinged art and copy across channels, urging consumers to "open your mouth, mind." This isn't just a one-off, with other brands such as Reese’s tapping unhinged humor in back to back Super Bowls, and premium tequila brand Don Julio teaming up with low-brow Popeyes Chicken for an unlikely yet fame-building collaboration.

Déjà Vu or a New Paradigm?

We marketers from the nineteenth century might be quick to dismiss this as just another cyclical trend. After all, we've lived through some strange outbursts of advertising over the years (remember the infamous Quizno's Super Bowl adfeaturing screeching, guitar-playing rodents?). But I’d argue this is something else: the emerging attention economy will amount to more than just a passing trend.

But why? Perhaps consumers, increasingly savvy to the machinations of marketing, are jaded to performative activism and empty promises. Meanwhile, what it means to experience a brand is shifting from the container of place and time to the internal world of visceral reaction. So, more important than a brand meaning something today, is the brand doing something: entertaining, provoking, challenging, and ultimately, making people feel.

Embracing the Chaos

But don’t be too quick to throw out your brand book and abandon all principles. It’s a shift, not an upheaval. Think of the attention economy as your new permission slip to play. Loosen your grip on your brand purpose once in a while, but keep it within sight. Instead of limiting yourself with "what would my brand do?" inspire yourself with "what could my brand do today to cut through?”

Three Things to Ponder, Going Forward:

• From preciousness in storytelling, to wild entertainment.
• From fearful adherence to brand truth, to more room to play.
• From "no because," to more "why not?"

So free yourself up, embrace a little chaos, and see where it takes you.