THE ATTENTION ECONOMY AND MODERN PUBLIC RELATIONS: Why Visibility Without Strategic Meaning Can Become Reputational Noise

 By Ishola N. Ayodele, fimc-CMC

“In a noisy world, the clearest signal is authentic connection” – Ishola Ayodele

Image Co-created with Gemini AI

There is an African proverb that says, “The drum that beats too loudly may attract dancers, but it also attracts enemies.” That proverb captures one of the greatest communication crises of our era. One of the greatest strategic errors of modern organizations is confusing audience reach with stakeholder relationship. Social media can amplify visibility, but it cannot automatically manufacture trust. Trust is relational, not algorithmic. As Stephen M. R. Covey wrote in The Speed of Trust, “Trust is the glue of life. It’s the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It’s the foundational principle that holds all relationships” (Covey, 2006).

Understanding the Attention Economy: A Zero-Sum Game for Human Focus

In an era where algorithms reward virality and dashboards track impressions in real time, leaders and organizations chase visibility like a sacred grail. Likes, shares, retweets, and media mentions promise relevance. Yet this fixation on being seen often at the expense of being meaningful creates what I call reputational noise: loud, fleeting signals that drown out authentic connection and erode long-term trust.

Over time, social media visibility damages reputation by fostering superficiality, inviting backlash, and undermining the relational bedrock that sustains influence. This has been supported by several studies (See, Annisette & Lafreniere, 2017; Aula, 2010; Carr, 2010; see also Weber Shandwick reputation studies). Hence, chasing raw visibility often signals desperation rather than substance.

To be clear, visibility is not inherently toxic. It is, in fact, necessary. A startup with an excellent product but zero visibility will fail not because its character is flawed, but because no one knows it exists. A nonprofit doing transformative community work must first be seen before it can build trust. Visibility can precede meaning; awareness often opens the door that relationship eventually walks through. The error is not in seeking visibility, but in settling for it as the final destination rather than the first step. When organizations treat visibility as victory rather than as an invitation to demonstrate substance, they drift into reputational danger. Therefore, the wise communicator pursues visibility not as an end, but as a bridge and ensures that once the audience arrives, they find authentic value, not empty noise.

Today, organizations compete not merely for market share, but for attention share. Political leaders crave trends more than trust, while CEOs monitor impressions, mentions, and virality with the same intensity once reserved for balance sheets and stakeholder confidence. Thomas H. Davenport and John C. Beck, in their seminal book The Attention Economy: Understanding the New Currency of Business (2001), frame attention as the scarce resource in an information-rich world. Organizations and individuals compete fiercely for it, but attention is finite and easily fragmented (Davenport & Beck, 2001).

Michael Goldhaber and Jonathan Beller extend this idea that, in the attention economy, audiences become labour, their focus commodified and sold to advertisers (Goldhaber, 1997; Beller, 2006). Research in cognitive psychology and economics confirms that constant pursuit of attention leads to shallow processing (Carr, 2010; Craik & Lockhart, 1972).

Imagine a marketplace where everyone shouts to be heard. The loudest voices dominate momentarily, but the crowd grows deaf to nuance. True influence belongs to the one who speaks softly yet carries wisdom that resonates in quiet conversations.

Chasing visibility without substance reduces leaders to flickering shadows noticed but seldom respected. As we say in Africa, “A pretty face and fine clothes do not make character.” Visibility is the garment; reputation is the character beneath it.

 

The PR Shift: From Relationship-Building to Visibility Metrics

Tim Wu’s The Attention Merchants (2016) chronicles how media has historically harvested attention, but social platforms accelerate it, turning PR into a spectacle. Studies show that while visibility boosts short-term awareness, it correlates weakly with trust or loyalty without relational depth (Wu, 2016). A case of high volume, low fidelity.

Modern public relations is increasingly suffering from the illusion of communicative relevance, a dangerous belief that being constantly seen automatically translates to being respected, trusted, or meaningful. But visibility is not credibility. Exposure is not influence. Virality is not relationship. And attention without strategic meaning eventually becomes reputational noise.

French philosopher Jean Baudrillard (1981), in Simulacra and Simulation, warned about societies becoming trapped in symbols that replace reality itself. This explains why audiences increasingly accuse brands of virtue signaling, performative activism, emotional manipulation, and “PR stunts.” Modern audiences are no longer merely consuming messages, they are interrogating motives.

 

The Danger of the “Always Online” Organization

Today, digital immediacy pressures organizations into “Compulsive Communication Syndrome,” where they feel obligated to respond to every criticism, comment on every social issue, join every trend, and maintain perpetual visibility. But strategic communication is not about talking constantly. It is about knowing when to speak, what to say, who to say it to, how to say it, and when silence protects meaning. As Marcus Aurelius wrote in Meditations, “The nearer a man comes to a calm mind, the closer he is to strength.” Sometimes, communication restraint is not weakness, it is strategic maturity.

In 2017, PepsiCo launched a high-profile advertisement featuring Kendall Jenner that sought to position the brand as a symbol of unity and peace amid social unrest. The ad depicted Jenner abandoning a glamorous photoshoot to join a diverse protest march, ultimately handing a can of Pepsi to a police officer, which magically diffused tension and sparked celebration. While the campaign achieved massive immediate visibility and widespread social media buzz, it collapsed within 24 hours, drawing intense global backlash. Critics widely condemned it for trivializing serious social justice movements, particularly Black Lives Matter, by reducing complex struggles against police brutality and systemic injustice to a simplistic, commodified spectacle.

The core issue lay in the glaring inauthenticity: Kendall Jenner, a celebrity with no established history of activism or advocacy on these issues, was cast as the face of protest resolution. This performative approach exemplified the dangers of chasing cultural relevance through visibility alone. Rather than fostering genuine dialogue or demonstrating corporate understanding, the ad was perceived as tone-deaf cultural appropriation that trivialized real pain for commercial gain. Pepsi swiftly pulled the commercial and issued an apology, but the incident remains a classic case study in how high-visibility efforts devoid of authenticity and meaningful stakeholder insight can inflict lasting reputational damage.

 

Similarly, in 2025, dating app Bumble launched a bold advertising campaign as part of its rebrand, featuring provocative slogans such as “A vow of celibacy is not the answer” and similar messages encouraging users to stay active in dating rather than opting out. The campaign aimed to generate buzz, re-engage lapsed users, and position Bumble as the empowering, progressive choice in a competitive market. It quickly achieved massive visibility across billboards, social media, and digital platforms. However, it triggered swift and intense backlash from users, influencers, and communities who felt the brand was shaming personal choices, invalidating mental health boundaries, and undermining its core promise of female empowerment and respect.

The controversy escalated because the campaign was perceived as tone-deaf and dismissive of genuine reasons people might choose celibacy, including healing from trauma, focusing on self-growth, or simply rejecting hookup culture. What Bumble intended as motivational messaging was widely interpreted as pressure tactics that contradicted modern values of consent and personal autonomy. The brand was forced to pull several ads and issue an apology, but the damage was done.

 

These cases show that visibility-driven engagement without deep stakeholder alignment can fracture brand identity. Not every conversation requires participation, and not every visibility opportunity strengthens reputation.

 

Co-Created Value: The Future of Strategic PR

Social media will never replace relationships because humans are wired for connection, not commodified attention. Trust accrues through small, consistent acts. Aristotle’s eudaimonia (flourishing) arises from virtuous habits and community, not spectacle. This aligns with R. Edward Freeman’s stakeholder theory, which argues that organizations succeed sustainably when they create value for their stakeholders.

The future of public relations will belong not to the loudest organizations, but to the most meaningful ones those that move from broadcasting to relationship cultivation, from attention fixation to trust architecture, and from manipulation to mutual value creation.

Leaders must audit visibility efforts for relational ROI. Measuring trust, advocacy, retention, and emotional legitimacy alongside reach. Build “relational capital” that algorithms cannot replicate. Treat social media as a tool for conversation, not a megaphone. Align every campaign with core substance and stakeholder benefit. Invest in offline and high-touch relationships. because noise fades, but truth endures. And prioritize co-created value through dialogue, transparency, and consistency.

 

CONCLUSION: Reputation Is Built in Relationships, Not Reach

German philosopher Martin Heidegger warned about the danger of “idle talk” excessive communication empty of authentic substance. Many organizations now communicate constantly without saying anything transformational (What I usually refer to as Communication without communicating). An African proverb says, “When the music changes too often, the dancers lose rhythm.” Consistency of meaning matters more than frequency of messaging.

Relationships are built through consistency, credibility, empathy, listening, mutual benefit, and shared value creation not hashtags alone, not viral posts, not choreographed brand emotions. Because in the end, visibility may attract attention but only meaningful relationships can sustain reputation.

Consequently, in this attention economy, your reputation can only travel farther and last longer if it is rooted in character, relationships, and value not mere visibility.

Remember, in a noisy world, the clearest signal is authentic connection. Embrace it.