Why Intent?

In some ways using audience intent instead of demographics is about taking marketing back to its roots.

Modern, or to be more accurate, industrial consumer marketing had its roots in the consumer boom that came at the end of the first industrial age. This was driven by the likes of Lever Brothers (now part of Unilever) with their Sunlight and Lifebuoy soaps. James and William Hesketh Lever founded Lever Brothers. William Lever is now more famous to marketers than consumers, as he is often credited with the famous quote “I know half my advertising isn’t working, I just don’t know which half” – a problem that focusing on the customer intent helps to address.

Prior to this consumer boom, shopkeepers and merchants were an intimate part of their communities; they had a good understanding of their immediate environments, local customs, and they knew their customers on a personal level so understood their intent – but probably didn’t conceptualize it in that way!