Slow has bad rep. Slow service, slow results, slow [insert word here].

But the concept of slow marketing and slow business is actually very good.

Slowing down – at the right moment – can help you deliver the best results.

You can dig deeper, ask the thoughtful questions that never get asked for fear of a long answer that needs unravelling.

In marketing, it’s one simple question:

So what?

Otherwise known as What’s in it for me?

It’s the question every customer needs an answer to. Without any bells and whistles.

So what? forces you to look at your product and service for what it really is.s.

When you can answer that, you have to put yourself into your customer’s shoes.

This often means you need to adjust your offering, making it easier for your customer to buy – through clearer Call-to-Actions, for example – and perhaps fix a few of the missteps on your customer journey.

Quiet ads: an immersive experience

There’s a new trend in advertising known as the quiet ad or slow ad.

Quiet ads pare back messaging to their core without any attention-grabbing noise.
They focus on the experience and engagement of the products and nothing more – so that they almost sell themselves.

Slow adverts in practice

To some, particularly creatives who are used to delivering bells and whistles, this form of marketing may seem dull, but what quiet ads do is to allow simplicity to speak to the soul, giving a chance for downtime and tranquil reflection.

• Malaysia Airlines shared a 30-minute ASMR & Chill clip of all the sounds you might hear departing from Kuala Lumpur on their plane.
• Waitrose have live streamed videos of its puddings steaming, and bees buzzing around a hive and a rapeseed field on one of its farms.
• Ronseal had a man painting a fence for three minutes on its #Ronseal AdBreak. And nothing more.
• Diageo had a video of comedian Nick Offerman drinking Lagavulin whisky by a roaring fire for 45 minutes. You could almost taste the peat and feel the heat.
• BBC Four Goes Slow put on slower content, including two two-hour long travel shows without any narration, All Aboard! The Canal Trip and All Aboard! The Country Bus for some truly immersive armchair travel, and Dawn Chorus: The Sounds of Spring.

Don’t just take it from us!

If you need some data to back it up then this one’s for you: Think With Google shares free insights based on actual marketing trends. And guess what it is? There was a four-fold increase on YouTube videos with “slow living” in the title in 2020 compared to 2019.

Just remember: the less time you spend on your marketing, the more time you have for tea and cake!