“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.
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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 13th 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/
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