Attention Isn’t the Problem. Decision Confidence Is.
Honasa's Saahil Nayar argues brands don't lose because of clutter but because they fail to reduce buying uncertainty. Here's how to build decision confidence.
Every marketer has said some version of it in a planning meeting: “We need to cut through the clutter.” A new opinion piece on ETBrandEquity quietly dismantles that reflex. Writing for the publication, Saahil Nayar — business head and senior vice president at Honasa Consumer — argues that the hardest part of brand building was never getting noticed. It’s getting chosen.
The argument: attention hasn’t disappeared, the bar has moved
Nayar, who says he has spent over fifteen years building consumer brands, pushes back on the popular framing of an “attention economy.” His point is that consumers are not paying less attention — they are actually spending more time deciding. They compare formulations, read reviews, watch wear-tests, ask peers, and increasingly use AI to compare options before buying.
What has changed, in his reading, is not the supply of attention but the threshold for earning confidence. And that leads to the sharpest line of the piece: marketers have started confusing visibility with preference. Visibility buys you a spot in the consideration set. Preference is what moves the product into the cart. Those two once travelled together. Now they don’t.
Conviction is assembled, not delivered
The article describes a buying journey that is neither linear nor brand-controlled. A creator introduces the product. Reviews validate it. Community threads answer the awkward practical questions. Expert opinion adds credibility. AI compresses comparison into seconds. Each touchpoint answers a different slice of one question: is this right for me?
Nayar frames this as a healthy development rather than a marketing problem — it forces brands to substantiate claims instead of simply amplifying them. He points to internal debates while working on brands including Staze and, more recently, Lumineve, noting that the most valuable conversations were about consumer need and proposition clarity, not media plans or campaign headlines.
Why this matters to our readers
Behaviourally, this tracks with something well documented: choice overload doesn’t just tire people out, it makes them defer. When perceived risk rises, the winning brand is rarely the loudest — it’s the one that lowers cognitive effort and makes the decision feel safe. Nayar’s version of that is elegant: brands don’t win because they communicate more, they win because they reduce the effort of deciding.
Two other claims in the piece deserve a marketer’s attention:
- Consistency compounds. Not repeating the same slogan, but delivering the same experience every time. Consumers don’t separate formulation from campaign, or packaging from customer service. They only remember whether the brand did what it promised.
- Communities are now a layer of brand building. Brands speak, consumers respond, communities interpret, and other consumers decide. Comment sections, WhatsApp groups and review platforms don’t replace brand communication — they complement it.
- AI changes discovery, not fundamentals. Technology can organise reviews; it cannot manufacture credibility. If anything, Nayar argues, AI raises the bar, because every touchpoint must now reflect a truthful, consistent experience.
A working framework: audit for uncertainty, not for reach
If you accept the premise, your dashboard changes. Instead of asking “how many people saw us,” ask where a buyer still hesitates. A simple three-step pass:
- List the doubts. For your category, write the five questions a first-time buyer silently asks — will it suit my skin, will it last, what if it doesn’t work, is it worth the price, who else like me uses it?
- Map who answers each one. Some belong to the product page, some to reviews, some to creators, some to returns policy. Unanswered doubts are where conversion leaks.
- Check for contradiction. If the ad promises one thing and the reviews say another, no amount of spend fixes it. Alignment is cheaper than awareness.
Nayar’s closing thought is worth keeping on a wall: attention is the beginning of the journey, but attention by itself is fleeting. What endures is the confidence built through repeated positive experiences — the point at which choosing your brand feels familiar and effortless. That’s not a campaign outcome. It’s an operating discipline.
Source: ETBrandEquity.com
