Create a knowledge deficit or 'curiosity gap'
Create a knowledge deficit or 'curiosity gap'
(By Rounakshi Dey )
Image By:- Shrut Kapadia |
“A curiosity gap is just a void between what you know and what you want to know.” Curiosity Gap is defined by the attention that focuses on the gap of one’s knowledge. This gap is produced by a feeling of deprivation. We are determined to fill in the missing link. Curiosity is the driving factor in human beings. We always tend to know the unknown and see the unseen. We are hardly bothered to know something that already exists. Human beings are inquisitive by nature. Time and again we are curious. Imagine a situation, you are sleeping at night, you hear a loud sound in the next room. You can definitely go back to sleep and ignore what has happened. But no, our mind is curious as to what has caused the sound. We go and check in the next room. Only when we are satisfied with the cause of the sound, we go back to sleep peacefully. This gap created in our mind, the moment we hear the sound until we know its origin is referred to as the curiosity gap. The Curiosity gap is a positive phenomenon as it helps us to know and learn new things every day.
Curiosity Gap in Marketing:
Today, we live in the age of digital marketing. We can buy anything online as we wish for. We no longer need to visit different stores to buy our essential items. Online marketing has made our lives much easier. As opposed to traditional shops where all items are displayed to us, online platforms do not expose all their items in one go. They slowly reveal their collection, hence creating a curiosity gap among its customers as to what is next in-store. This compels the customers to keep on pressing, “More items” option to satisfy their curiosity. This is where online marketing becomes successful. We have been marketing campaigns to raise the curiosity of viewers. Catchy headlines are a must in online advertisement. These catchy headlines serve as bait for potential customers. Whenever we have some festivals coming up, we see advertisement pop ups sating “Gifts for Rakhi” or “Exciting gifts for Diwali” to name a few. They never reveal the gift in store, but just advertise stating that they have gifts for a festival. These lines are enough to arouse curiosity and the viewer definitely checks the link. This increases their business prospect as most of the viewers after checking out gifts tend to place an order. The Curiosity gap is used completely to its advantage by all e-commerce websites.
Curiosity Gap in Web Series, Movies, Books and Many others…
Binge-watching on web series has become the favorite pastime of many. Web series was a foreign concept until a few years back. Yet, it has managed to make its mark in the minds of all irrespective of their age. The reason for web series is so successful is that they are able to exploit the curiosity gap of the viewers. The trailer is the most important part of generating curiosity. The viewers, if intrigued after seeing the trailer will definitely start watching the series. The trailer leaves open ends throughout it so that the viewers out of curiosity to know more will definitely watch them. Also, each episode of a webbing series ends in a cliff hanger. This arouses more curiosity and the viewer is compelled to see the next one, then next, and completes the entire season in a go. Nowadays, most web series do not end in a single season rather ends with an open end, this compels the viewers to wait eagerly for the next seasons. This increases the fan following and increases their revenues too. Films too follow the same concept. As opposed to older times, movies nowadays leave the end open to create a sequel years later or leave the ending to the viewers’ imagination. Books having a number of parts to be published, follow a similar concept. When endings are left to the reader’s imagination, they are intrigued and curious. We have different fan forums, citing different possible endings and this leads to very good publicity. YouTube’s channels and websites too follow a similar concept of using the curiosity gap to the best of their advantage.
Human beings are always curious. This curiosity gap should be used by us for our development. We should be curious to feed our minds with good books and articles. Instead, we spend time binge-watching or seeing some e-commerce site. Though for recreational purposes binge-watching is good, but they waste a lot of our productive time. We should not fall trap to the marketing campaigns used by all businesses. Curiosity is a mixture of cognition and motivation. We must use our time productively as the time that has flown back will never return again. Be curious and keep on learning!!
Disclaimer:-
The opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of Light de Literacy and LDL does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.
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