How to Stand Out in a 3-Second World

In our information-saturated generation, there are over 60 billion messages shared on digital platforms each day. The average person is exposed to between 4,000 and 10,000 ads daily.

Whether you’re promoting a brand, a service, or yourself, you need a communication tool that packages your message in a concise, riveting way. That’s why marketing Hook Points are essential.

Understanding Your Customers

Want to build a following or generate big profits?

In this micro-attention age, you’ll need a Hook Point that taps into the problems that keep your prospects awake at night. A Hook Point is different than general branding. Instead, it’s the bait that lures people to bite (that is, to pay attention to what your brand offers).

You can’t take a person someplace unless you start where they’re at. To create your Hook Point, work hard to understand your key customers. Ask questions like:

How can I solve my audience’s specific pain point or problem?
What is an outcome this audience has been seeking that they’ve yet to find?
What ideas or themes intrigue my primary prospects?

Now use this consumer-focused angle to craft a succinct, attention-grabbing catchphrase. Here are some examples:

“The scariest movie of all time is a true story” (The Blair Witch Project)
“No late fees” (Netflix)
“Elon Musk made the Cybertruck ugly on purpose – and it’s the smartest thing he’s ever done” (Tesla)

Crafting Your Hook Point

After you define what makes your product unique and relevant, work through some of these steps to craft your Hook Point:

Choose one distinct selling point to attract attention
Highlight why this makes you completely different than others in your field
Develop a brief, attention-grabbing phrase (using as few words as possible)
Emphasize scarcity, exclusivity, or the possibility of loss
Break your information into bite-size, manageable, actionable chunks
Surprise people with an unexpected angle (like Tesla’s Cybertruck example)
Present familiar concepts in an original way (like Geico’s money-saving Hook Point: “So easy a caveman can do it!”)
Craft a phrase that briefly describes the essence of your identity (like the Harley tagline, “The Great American Freedom Machine”)

Make Complicated Information Clear and Accessible

Building a solid Hook Point is a process that includes creativity, testing, and refining.

Brainstorm more variations than you think possible – from 50 to 100 options. Stretching your creative capacity will help you come up with better ideas and sharper content. Making this information bite-sized and compelling will fuel brand awareness and growth.

Hook Point: How to Stand Out in a 3-Second World

by Brendan Kane

Hook Point: How to Stand Out in a 3-Second World, by out of the box thinker Brendan Kane, breaks down the most effective strategies to generate new opportunities, innovate and scale your business, and create a compelling brand—both online and off—so you can thrive in the new micro-attention world in which we live.

A lot of people know who they are, what they do, and a few even know why they do it—but even when brands or individuals have clarity in these areas, they often struggle to grab a potential audience’s attention for long enough to get them to learn about their attributes. Others have amazing products or services that fail to achieve great success because they don't know how to talk about what they do effectively. This is because digital and social media have reshaped our world into one of micro-attention.

There are over sixty billion messages shared on digital platforms each day, and the average person is exposed to between four thousand to ten thousand ads a day. This bombardment of stimuli has changed the way we communicate and market content both online and off. In fact, research shows that you have less than three seconds to capture a person’s attention. With such a short window of time, we need to hook audiences quickly, efficiently, and consistently if we want to successfully fuel brand awareness and growth.

Luckily, Brendan Kane, an out-of-the-box thinker and strategist who’s built platforms for celebrities like Taylor Swift and Rhianna, and worked with Fortune 500 companies like Paramount, Viacom, and MTV has mastered the art of standing out. In Hook Point: How to Stand Out in a 3-Second World he reveals the power of hook points—a communication tool that helps marketers package their messages in a succinct, attention-grabbing way that leads to better opportunities both online and off. Whether you’re promoting a brand, product, or service this book is the essential guide for making it in our three-second world.