Not all attention is created equal. What you should seek, rather than just “free” or “cheap” attention is the greatest return on attention. Gonzo marketing is a great way for small companies to build awareness, if it’s approached with a bit of common sense, moderation, and good taste. But it’s probably not a great way for brands that already have awareness to boost their returns on attention, to go further.

How much further? If you want to “use social media,” seek the nuance; think about it a little more carefully. The goal should be more than just sinking to full fathom five just to grab cheap, quick attention, because the long-run costs will more than likely outweigh any short-run gains (no matter what your genius of a marketing agency tells you). Instead, your goal should be doing meaningful stuff that matters, so you can build lasting engagement, trust, affection, devotion, inspiration, deeper connection — and maybe, just maybe, begin to approach delight, joy, amazement, and happiness.

To even begin to do that, though, you’ve got to get radically, seriously meaningful. Instead of stunts and spectacles, you’ve got to focus like a laser beam on what elevates — instead of what merely titillates. You’ve got to stop branding — and start standing for something bigger than just a logo, a slogan, a color palette, and a bunch of empty promises.

The problem, of course, is that marketing as we know it has, too often, been about creating imaginary benefits, promising the world but delivering the less-than-wonderful, hyping up interchangeable, mass-produced “product” before it reaches the event horizon of commoditization, placating the boardroom by pumping up near-term sales. Hence, I’d observe: if the Gap’s campaign really was gonzo, there’s no surer sign of just how obsolete marketing as most companies think it, see it, plan it, and practice it really is.

As my colleague Stacy Lukasavitz recently wrote: “Viral is an outcome, not a strategy.” Real branding starts within and emanates outwardly rather than the other way around.