The Better Mousetrap

Is Social Media just a bit Anti-Social?

 

 

A friend of mine, Jean Baptiste, is about to step into a career sabbatical and go earn himself an MSc in Digital Anthropology. I love the way Anthropology is moving with the times, has gone “all digital”. Could make for some damnably interesting stuff; good on JB, I wish him truly well.

 

JB read my last post on Digital Brands. 

 

“We use our digital brands to help express who we are. They allow us to be, to hold a mirror up to ourselves, and it is clear. We like what we see.”

Source: Yours Digitally: The Birth of Brand Charisma

 

JB made the observation we so “like what we see” because it’s narcissism of the contrived kind, a self-manufactured pixelated reflection of the cooler, better-looking, more impressive version of ourselves.

 

“Yours digitally” is a pretty positive post. And every upside invariably has a downside, every upbeat a corresponding downbeat. To even things up, JB’s comments got me speculating on the downbeat. 

 

  

For “Social Innocence”, I mean this. Innocent, as in to happily portray yourself for who you are, and to live genuinely In-the-Moment - as opposed to at a remove, self-conscious to whether and when a moment can be tweeted or uploaded.

 

Social Media is turning private lives into public “factions”. (This theme has got me tinkering with some new descriptors.)

 

  
 

The criticism is we’re developing a “curators conceit”, living so much posthumously, “Life Experiences” only made “real” once they’re logged, tagged, uploaded, shared.

 

The Moment is no longer reflective of what occurred, because it only serves as “material”, as “Exhibited Proof” of the Socially Rich & Rewarding lives we’re clearly leading. The puzzler then becomes: Are we only enjoying the fun once someone else can see how much fun we had?

 

For, “The man who wasn't there”, we now have, “The life that wasn’t really lived”. Like being the camera-man at somebody’s wedding, the experience is through a lens, within a frame, “outside-the-moment”.

  

 

 

For a while now, an old school friend of mine has appeared to be “living through Facebook”. He was always a bit of a Walter Mitty-type, inclined to flights of fancy and exaggeration. All judgements aside, Social Media has become a Quite Major Channel for him, as the self-appointed “biographer” of his own digitally documented life. Fulfilling as it may be, I can’t help wonder, for just how long is he Out-of-Body, in the Third Person, applying an Observers Eye upon himself?

 

As Peggy Orenstein put it in “I Tweet, Therefore I Am”, for us all, there’s becoming a quite extreme blurring of “the line between person and persona”.

 

   

Few of us are so evolved as to be fully accepting of who we really are. “Being selective” is too big a temptation for almost everybody – but Social Media allows us to busily build the Avatar of Our Ego.

 

 

Online, the short and the fat can walk taller and feel thinner. Online, we can be All Ego, can be our walking Dorian Gray’s.

 

 

 

Most extreme perhaps, Social Media allows us to even have “Followers”, which is ego-fuelling on a wholly higher level. Is a Messiah-complex now within easy reach of everyone?

 

No question, Social Media taps deep into the human condition. All the upsides and downsides aside, let us ultimately hope it will bring out not only the best but also “the real” in us.

SP.

 

“Yours digitally”: The Birth of Brand Charisma

 

“Brand-in-hand”, that was the phrase, that was the ultimate marketing goal. Trial, purchase, a first-hand experience, a tactile one, “brand-in-hand” was what all the advertising in the world was pointing everyone at, beyond which, it was then down to The Experience.

 

The advertising that worked had taken the horse to water. Once “in hand”, it was crunch time, down to product truth, no smoke, no mirrors, no more strap lines. The soap had to lather, the shoe fit, the dishes clean shiny and bright. Product Experience had to deliver, to re-enforce the Ad Promise, and if it did align then all was very well and you were onto a winner, a repeat purchase, maybe even a first-person recommendation.

 

That of course was “then”, all back in the day when “brands” assumed a physically tangible form, had a 3-dimensional shape to them.

 

These very different days, 3-dimensions isn’t what it used to be, is no longer a pre-requisite in the Brand Game. That thinking’s all rather Old Hat, back when the hat was analogue.

 

*

cha·ris·ma – noun

 

a spiritual power or personal quality that gives an individual influence or authority over large numbers of people

Source: www.dictionary.reference.com

 

The Digital Age is redefining branding. While some of the old themes certainly still apply, new truths have entered the game.

 

New Truth #1: Tempus Fugit doesn’t help, isn’t necessary

 

Physical (analogue) brands were typically forged over time. They had history, ideally re-tuned into some kind of mythology, to help build their mystique. “Standing the test of time” really stood for something.

 

By contrast, digital brands have permission to “come out of nowhere”, because it is quite literally as they appear to do, as are the accepted and governing norms of the digital universe. Yesterday, they were simply not there. Then someone somewhere uploaded a file and it’s, “Welcome to the party! Come join my group! Tell me what you like!”

 

 

 

Digital brands don’t need a back-story, and don’t need to convert back-story into consumer trust.

 

For digital brands, their “instant mystique” may lie in their origins, maybe their founder or the company ethos behind their pixelated form, whether a Mark Zuckerberg or a Jack Dorsey or a proclamation like, “Don’t be evil”. However, a sense of origin is far from essential. Meeting a New Need, one you never even knew you had, is more than compelling enough to build a near-exponential tribal following.

 

Before cell phones (BCP), people had to “pre-arrange” where and when they met. A phone box could help, but only if you were calling someone at a Fixed Location, where they were near a landline. It all sounds positively archaic, and it was. A phone in everyone’s pocket changed all that, created a whole New Need and presented a whole new level of ease and convenience.

 

Back to the present, and we have Foursquare (www.foursquare.com), a “social network-cell-phone-GPS” mash-up. Now we can have a sense of “community” and social connectivity, with satellite support. Digital brand Foursquare is redefining how we feel about our physical space.

 

“Foursquare started out in 2009 with limited availability in only 100 worldwide metro areas. In January 2010, Foursquare changed their location model to allow check-ins from any location worldwide. As of January 2011, the service had 6 million registered users internationally.”

Source: Wikipedia

 

Which all takes me to...

 

New Truth #2: “Useful & Relevant” has been usurped by “Indispensable & Immediately Satisfying”.

 

Useful & Relevant remain the cornerstones of any healthy brand, digital or otherwise... but digital brands are becoming indispensable. Successful digital brands are needs-based, and more specifically, “Immediate Need” Based. 

 

The need to find information, accurately, and right away.

The need to learn.

The need “to buy”.

The need to “connect” with others, to “be in the know and in touch”, to acknowledge our compulsions as social creatures.

The need to pass comment, criticism, judgement, approval.

The need to have a voice.

The need to not feel alone.

 

“Brand-in-hand” is taking a back seat to “Brand-at-fingertip”. Digital brands, as accessed through keyboard or touch-screen are becoming “more powerful” than their 3-D occupying forefathers, more powerful than anyone could have conceived 10 years ago.

 

Facebook could be worth as much as $50 billion. Twitter worth $3.7 billion. The Google brand is said to clock in at a staggering $114 billion, according to Millward Brown Optimor’s BrandZ Top 100 (2010 survey).

 

On BrandZ, Google takes the number 1 brand spot, followed by IBM ($86bn), Apple ($83bn), and then Microsoft ($76bn). Coca Cola ($68bn) and McDonalds ($66bn) stand next in line. As illustrations go, I think this is stark.

 

Bottles of Coca-Cola were first sold in 1886. (How’s that for back-story?) McDonalds has been open for business since 1940 and currently serve 58 million burger lovers a day. Google, founded in 1998, will celebrate its 13^th birthday this September.  

 

Coca Cola’s advertising investment runs to the tune of $2.5bn per annum (source: Advertising Age), and it’s been making some kind of per annum investment every year for the last 125 years. By modest comparison, Google’s annual global ad spend is speculated to be around $188m. 

 

To me, still the Really Rather Remarkable thing is, you can go out and “buy” a Big Mac or an iPod or a can of Coke, but Google and Facebook and Twitter are only “accessible” through screen-based interaction.

 

Digital brands exist in the ether, in that abstract frontier called cyberspace, through the looking glass of a computer screen, a screen that may be big or small, portable or desk-bound, a computer that may also be a phone.

 

And yet...

 

New Truth #3: Hearts & Minds can be won in cyberspace

 

While you can never wear or taste a digital brand, that doesn’t make them any less real. A digital brand is as alive as any physical brand. It exists, not on physical but emotional dimensions, is “made real” though its usage, through the experiences it facilitates, the utility it provides, in how it meets people’s fundamental needs, in how it fulfils and gratifies.

 

In an earlier post, “Brands: Thorny, gnarly, ever-so-twisty”, I talk about how brands are “real... and unreal”. How they exist “in the eye and the mind of a consumer.” By this logic, it is utterly reasonable for digital brands to be as perceptually “concrete” as those that also take a physical form.  

 

New Truth #4: Digital brands don’t peddle desire, they peddle dependency. They are narcotic.

 

Desirable physical brands are brands you want to "have", to possess, to go out and “buy”. By glorious contrast, social media brands, for example, are digital brands you want to spend time with, be in the company of.

 

Once you “possess”, the fix can quickly wane, the thrill-of-the-want over... but with digital brands, the thrill lies in the experience, and the fix doesn’t diminish, never tarnishes, stays ever sparkly and buff.

 

Spanish social hub Tuenti (www.tuenti.com) now boasts 90% domestic penetration amongst 14-35 year olds, and an average daily use of 82 minutes (2011). And these are not 82 passive, lean-back minutes. These are 82 minutes of Highly Engaged Me-Time.

 

Digital brands wield the power of dangerous addiction. They’re like wildly charismatic heart-and-soul-of-the-party types; the John Belushi, Dennis Hopper, Ollie Reed, Fun Bobby of our (increasingly digital) brand orbit.

 

 

Simply more charismatic

 

As we are fast appreciating, digital brands simply have the ability to be more charismatic than their physical counterparts. They appear to build “consumer trust” almost overnight, can create drug-like dependency and borderline zealotry amongst their tribe of users. They can go from underground to seemingly everywhere in the stroke of a return key, and there’s rarely a TV ad urging anyone to go visit a “w-w-w-dot”. This is charisma.

 

And the “how” of it is increasingly evident. We cannot get enough of our digital brands because they are truly ours, because they can make life easier and allow us to be who we are and live the way we prefer.

 

We wear our physical brands like badges, to help define us – but we use our digital brands to help express who we are. They allow us to be, to hold a mirror up to ourselves, and it is clear. We like what we see.

 

Maybe Mark Zuckerberg is worth all those billions after all?

SP.

 

References:

http://techcrunch.com/2009/08/06/whats-the-google-brand-worth-these-days-100-billion/

 

“Same difference”: The Counterpoint brand

 

 

“Every search for a hero must begin with something that every hero requires, a villain. Therefore, in our search for a hero, Bellerophon, we created the monster, Chimera.”

Mission Impossible II (2000)

 

 

Without evil, good cannot exist. Let's not get too weighty here, only make the point that things become know-able and understood in relation to another, to some point of contrast.

 

It doesn't have to be as literal as establishing opposites, good-evil, black-white, although a Point of Comparison does serve to identify difference.

 

Some time ago, I played around with the idea of "The Counterpoint brand", and this still holds up for me.

 

The Counterpoint brand is, often, the second-to-market or Number 2 brand in a category. Over time, it asserts that it's absolutely and positively not "the second best option" but the viable, maybe radical, perhaps sexier, even better alternative.

 

And a lot of it is perceptual rather than substance-based.

 

Take BMW and Audi.

 

I’m sure die hard BMW and Audi fans will swear these brands, “their brands”, are poles apart, and there is maybe a little Cain & Abel going on... but really... c'mon... Audi and BMW are cut from the same cloth.

 

BMW, more “The Establishment”, Audi, “edgier” and arguably younger and sexier, but all in all, they're both the embodiment of German engineering excellence from pioneering design houses. Two sides, same coin.

 

The chassis, under the bonnet, the cabin-build quality, “the drive”, the choice between Audi and BMW is born of emotional brand appeal, because the physical qualities are inherently similar.

 

What becomes compelling, which is where Advertising & Image Creation comes in, is how BMW and Audi drivers strongly differentiate themselves from each other.

 

"Audi? Oh no. For me, it's BMW all the way".

"I'd never drive BMW, I'm very much an Audi kinda guy."

 

Remember this Yuppie send-up ad from the mid-90’s, where Audi looked to score points from BMW in regard to the kind of driver they attracted?

 

 

Audi “It won’t be appreciated by everyone”

 

The reality is, Audi's existence helps define BMW. BMW gives comparative meaning to the Audi brand. Each establishes a bearing in relation to the other, like a ship off-shore fixing on the beam from a lighthouse.

 

It's a curious thought that the efforts of Audi's marketing department is defining what BMW stands for. And of course, the vice-versa applies.

 

Haagen Dazs and Ben & Jerry’s.

McDonalds and Burger King.

Google and Bing.

Facebook and Twitter.

Apple and Microsoft.

 

 

“I’m a Mac...”

 

I’m not suggesting “Name the Counterpoint brand?” is a fun and fail-safe game that can kill an 8 hour car journey, but it’s a potentially instructive vantage point when trying to get to the bottom of the “where & whys” behind a brand’s meaning and appeal.

 

Search engines, computer software and hardware, premium ice creams and hamburgers – the counterpoint principle can apply to most categories, where brands may derive perceived meaning (and tribal allegiance) from their juxtaposition.

 

Audi, Apple, Bing, Burger King – all are clear, and clearly vocal Counterpoint Brands.

 

 

“More like a back-yard BBQ”

 

And what is more, vocal is good. Vocal brands are what people need – because it’s hard to make decisions in isolation, within a void empty of “Compare & Contrast”.

 

“Is this toaster cheap or expensive, well-made or shoddy?” Without comparison, people’s heads spin. They feel in the dark, ill-informed, even a little brain-queasy. We all “go compare” on instinct, which is why the internet is awash with price-comparison sites, all claiming to be these demystifying “make-easy” agents in a world of Too Much Choice.  

 

 

compare-all-you-want.com

 

All product categories are battlegrounds, where brand’s bare teeth and knuckle in their attempts to come out on top. Their distinction (pseudo or real) is a function of comparison. For all brands, the assertion of Different & Better is an eternal pursuit, and it means that “branding” is all about relativity. To me, it’s a vis-à-vis kind of dynamic.

 

To be a category hero, a brand needs to contrive a worthy villain, a suitable counterpoint, irrespective of how same or different they truly are.

 

 

Audi... defined by its competition

SP.

 

Footnote:

Unbreakable (2000): “Now that we know who you are, I know who I am.”

 

Transmedia... in a tube card

 

In his book Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide (2006), Henry Jenkins describes transmedia storytelling as storytelling across multiple forms of media with each element making distinctive contributions to a fan's understanding of the story world. By using different media formats, transmedia creates "entrypoints" through which consumers can become immersed in a story world.

Source: Wikipedia

 

A few days back, I had a Transmedia Moment. It was during my morning commute by tube train, while deep in the clay strata of London. A “Transmedia Moment”, no doubt, and the first time it’s so obviously happened to me, which says everything, given “Transmedia” as Published Theory is a full half-decade old.

 

There’s a new movie coming out, at the time I hadn’t heard of it, and what I saw adjacent the tube panel ads for Adult Education courses and Wellman vitamins and the latest Techno-Packed Tablets was... The Clear Pill.

 

 

The Clear Pill – Tube card panel... as story world “entry-point”

 

My thought process went something like this...

 

That’s the guy who was in The Hangover and The A-team, B-Lister Bradley somebody. He’s in a new movie called The Clear Pill? Or he’s “face-ing” some pharmaceutical pick-me-up? If the latter, surely his agent has dictated a European ring-fence so it doesn’t trash his Stateside Movie Star image?

 

Two seconds more reading and a spoof ad, tactically placed, became clear. Only, The Clear Pill is not the name of the movie. The only piece of copy that wasn’t pure fiction is where it suggested I visit www.showfilmfirst.com, type in “Limitless”, and nab me some preview tickets.

 

For the record, “Limitless is a 2011 American techno-thriller directed by Neil Burger, starring Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro. It is based on the 2001 novel The Dark Fields”.(Source: Wikipedia).

 

What I liked about my one single tube card experience is how it fluttered at the edges of a still very buzzy idea.

 

The fact “Transmedia” is still buzzy has (I suspect) everything to do with it being a Broad Beam Ambition, and that few-to-none have really cracked it.

 

Jenkins’ Convergence Culture is no by-the-numbers How To Guide. Putting Transmedia theory into practice remains largely unsatisfying, much like Man’s attempts to conquer outer space.

  

 

Transmedia: “It’s media Jim, just not as we know it.”

 

Transmedia Thinking anchors itself to The World of Story, the ambition principally being one of how you can bring “story to life” in different places, in a non-linear fashion. The marketing of Motion Pictures is the most obvious application, where Transmedia maintains there’s a Bigger Picture Opportunity to punting a Big Picture.

 

Transmedia theory, applied to a movie launch, is all about promoting The Story, not the "due date of a movie starring...” In an industry built on the conventions of Stars Sell Movies and their name sits Above the Title, Transmedia thinking is anti-conventional and boldly purist.

 

People crave the ride of a Great Story. Transmedia purports: start the ride early, way before the journey to the movie theatre. Hook people in with The Story Conceit. Turn any number of media “touchpoints” into a non-linear Narrative Ecosystem. Media becomes a tapestry. “The Story” a golden thread stitched in any number of directions, to create an immersive, multi-sensory shroud.

 

But you see what just happened?

 

Yes, in that last paragraph. The Common Transmedia Trap, getting all giddy and over-excited and “metaphoring” like crazy, still fixating on the Big Vision as theory and not practice.

 

And what was that about a shroud?

 

Let’s back it up a bit.

 

Simplify.

 

I call it the Bow Tie model, which I think can rather neatly map the delivery of a Transmedia Solution.

 

 

The Bow Tie model structures every event into 3 parts, a Before, During, and an After.

 

Every event, as common-garden-variety as “Going to the Movies”, still has a Pre and a Post – and both can be used to serve the Marketing End Game of box office takings, of getting popcorn-munchers into seats.

 

Consider Transmedia and the marketing of movies within the Bow Tie model.

 

In the Pre, it’s all about mystery, tease, some reveal, and reward through discovery, the marketing equivalent of studio pitching early adopting consumers with a movie idea (only one that's already been turned into a movie).  

 

The story "outside" the movie theatre, the story in “bite form”, like a tube card snippet, and maybe some choice semiotic seeding, guerrilla stenciling some story emblems perhaps, all serving to build intrigue and hype and fan boy cyber chatter. 

 

 
Symbol-Seed-Tease.

 

In the Pre Moment, you want people to know everything and nothing about the movie. You want them exposed to any collateral that creates a vivid sense of the movies style and its premise. You don't ideally want them exposed to the movies major visual moments and killer lines. These should all come in the context of “The Event”, sitting in the dark, marveling In-the-Moment of watching.

 

Take a movie like Indecent Proposal (1993). It was always going to do very tidy Box Office because its one-line premise conjured the kind of “what would you do?” intrigue that made people want to see what Demi Moore would do. The premise alone was perfect fuel for The Pre.

 

And then there’s J.J. Abrams. Cloverfield (2008), Super 8 (2011), J.J.’s not capable of launching a new movie without loading The Pre full of Transmedia fizz-bombs.

 

The Post is all about self perpetuation, indulging the feel good of in-the-know early adoption; encouraging all those good Pass-It-On behaviours and “OMG!” First-Person-Proclamations. More fizz-bombs, but these from the Early Adopters stoking The Pre-Moment for the Late Majority.

 

Before I reached the end of my morning commute, I considered how easy it could be to export Transmedia beyond the marketing of movies, say into a broader entertainment space, into the story-telling of theme parks and public attractions, zoos and aquariums for example. It’s not even a stretch, to take the theme park beyond the walls of the theme park, to create “virtual experiences” that ghost the real thing.

 

Imagine roller coasters with mini-cams mounted to the front carriage, beaming first person experiences direct... to digital escalator panels. One ride, juxtaposed against another. Imagine projecting real time images of a shark tank in an underground tube station.

 

Rather than taking the park beyond the park, Disneyworld has focused on the Before in an absolute sense, capturing the emotions of The Pre in their current UK TV campaign. I defy any parent to be immune to this brand of magic. 

 

 

 

On April 6, 2010, the Producers Guild of America announced the addition of “Transmedia Producer” to the Producers Code of Credits. A big deal that some termed “unprecedented”, it marked the first time in the guild’s 60-year history that a new credit had been added to the list.

 

When Limitless goes on UK general release on March 23rd, I’ll be there, suspending disbelief in the dark, only when the closing credits roll, I may just stick around to see if a Transmedia Producer had anything to with that tube card panel?

SP.

 

Footnote:

The Clear Pill UK tube campaign: Big dues to M2M for turning the thinking into doing. Nice one. Did you guys negotiate a Transmedia Producer credit?