Intentional Purgatory – the new place for Marketing and Communications

Michael Staton

A few short weeks ago, Facebook announced a slow rollout of Facebook Messages.  It has a few fundamental ideas, one of which should make MarComm shake in their boots.

Marketing is essentially arresting someone’s attention with the hopes you grab their interest and they eventually convert into a customer.

Email marketing has relied on the inefficiency of the inbox to lump things people probably may care about a little with the messages people care about a lot.  That’s how marketers got your attention – by being between work emails or emails from friends.

But now, with the advent of the Facebook Messages, the space marketers have relied on – betwixt the messages you care about – will more or less disappear.  Google has also introduced it’s “Priority Inbox” with similar implications.

Marketers, you are now in “Intentional Purgatory.”  I call it this because you’re now in a box just made for you – a box that people “intend” to get around to looking at, but most likely never will in any way that will command their attention for your message.

University Communications beware, Andrew Bosworth, the architect of the new Facebook Messages (also the creator of Newsfeed and the Like system), even said “this is the inbox for your alumni organization emails….”  And thus, he specifically told you folks in university communications and alumni relations: this is your spot, you’re in Intentional Purgatory.