Blurred Lines Examples

Enterprise thinking.
Sustainable business development necessarily takes the view that all of the broader systems in which they operate must be brought within the management construct. The basic rationale is that it makes no odds if your business is sustainable if it exists within a system that is not. You would still be on course for an iceberg which is perhaps the wrong metaphor. But conversely this new holistic approach allows bigger and better perspectives. Customers and clients become partners and stakeholders that can lead to more productive relationships e.g collaborative projects where products can be developed and brought to market in new ways. Blurred lines between the company, the consumer, the client, the supplier and the environment multiplies the benefits for all stakeholders.

Blurred lines thinking...

...was set up as an organizing thought for this blog but I can’t remember ever explaining it. Blurred lines thinking is the idea that the best way to try and understand the way that something works or why it is this or that, is by applying the principle that it is in some way part of a bigger picture or framework that ties it to the rest of everything. In other words like an artist who is trying to resolve one small area of a painting, clarity can come by stepping backwards and then backwards again.   Each time bigger and more general systems can be viewed in an increasingly coherent image. In blurred lines thinking the individual brush strokes can always blur into a bigger image no matter what sphere of life, science or culture you are studying.

The father of blurred lines thinking has to be Einstein. The foresight that allows you to link things as remote as (E)nery and (M)ass as part of one silky fabric seems easier to imagine if you start from the point of view that everything on some level is part of the same stuff. Then the possibility of space and time being connected might lead more easily to an understanding of ‘spacetime.’

Zoom in a few thousand levels closer to the surface of things and its also the reason why marketing services jobs can benefit from an interest in all things that relate to the human condition. Plus its also a thousand times more interesting that way. So have a problem about brand relationships then read about relativity; on one level they have to be well... related.

Examples to follow...

'The easy way to stop being an ego driven, all consuming sap on the environment'

Selfridges has lots of good ideas, even to the point that they can turn the big brash sale signs that they use into an art-form. Fashion loves irony because it creates exclusivity i.e. are you in on it or are you one of the uncool people who don’t get it. In this case its the quasi-religious nature of shopping in modern life that is being sent up.

To the the greater extent its just smart humour but it must say something about the condition itself that it does not stop people in their tracks. I was there over the weekend and like everyone else I was not questioning why I was there or what I really needed. And like everyone else I was a little caught up in how much money was there to be ‘saved.’

The double irony is that looking around the signs are pretty close to the truth. To be held in the grasp of wanting more stuff is the natural disposition that keeps the economy burning. And its hard to image what will replace it in the future though replaced, modified and reshaped it surely will need to be. I am starting to see it like smoking.

-Short term chemical compulsions i.e. adrenalin, the buzz, the instant gratification,
This acts like a nicotine deficiency and regularly wants to be topped up.

-Coupled and blurred with an array of longer term mental addictions which keep ticking over in the background i.e. I will look better and be more successful if i buy this.
This is not unlike the smokers phycology that tells them they need to smoke to have a good time or to enjoy a meal.

I gave up smoking using Alan Carrs book ‘The Easy way to Give up Smoking,’ that takes the opposite approach of most methods. It does this by ignoring the reasons why you should not smoke which everybody knows anyway, and isolating, explaining and ultimately revoking the reasons why you do. I am probably in the top quarter of people who actively learn about and try to change their behavior in order to live more sustainably yet frequently succumb to fast fashion. In other words I fully understand why sustainable lifestyles are necessary but this does not always translate into actions. Perhaps the other side of the coin i.e. isolating the reasons why you feel compelled to spend a Sunday in Selfridges would be more powerful. After all smokers know they are killing themselves quite imminently and directly but it fails to stop them. When I have worked it out ‘the easy way to stop being an ego driven, all consuming sap on the environment,’ is the book I would want to write to explain the process.

Counter intuitive thinking and a $1000 incentive to quit the company

It is not very often that you hear the company where a person works described in a really enthusiastic and positive light. This could be part of the national cynicism of the British but I’m sure its pretty universal. Its one of the few bastions of a sense of community feeling to be able to share in the berating of the place where you work on a par with things like reality TV contestants.

So what if your company started to offer you incentives to leave. If you really meant all of the moans you'd take them up in a shot. Otherwise you would have to start to admit that actually you have got it pretty good and on balance its where you want to be.

Zappos, which for people outside the US is the Amazon of shoes, offers all new recruits $1000 to leave after they have completed their initial training (from an interview on the HBR ideaCast.) And as the company has been growing so has the amount offered to quit. The result being that the people who stay do so after interrogating and renewing their conviction, and the one’s that don’t have the desire or the energy leave the company with its full blessing and something to tide them over while they think about their next move. It makes perfect sense knowing that one of the big problems with big companies is the lower concentrations of motivated and passionate people than in small companies.  However I had to hear the explanation before I fully agreed and understood. Therein is the problem because anything that needs explanation to sound sensible is always going to struggle in the modern company where ideas have to survive based on only the partial attention of all the people necessary to carry and execute them.

It’s a far harder sell to get people to implement the opposite of what seems to make sense rather than the obvious. Even less so in consumer facing decisions such as brand communications which often come from outside partners who have even more incentives to put simplicity first. There must be plenty of instances where the opposite of what seems to make sense is a much better option…

i.e.

-Grown-ups telling young people not to do things like smoke and drink usually has the opposite effect. Wouldn’t it be better to do something like brand them as brilliant fun for the ‘sad’ and middle aged.

-The hard sell also puts up barriers rather than takes them down… why not communicate how hard your product is to find or make your audience go to special lengths to get hold of it.

-By selling sex to men to promote a product like deodorant (aka LYNX,) you are essentially part of the problem that stops young men getting what they really want i.e. attracting and affirming the behaviours of the kind of men who put pictures of topless women on their wall. Wouldn’t it be better to be the kind of brand that helps men appreciate that if they really really like women that much then would it not be much better to avoid doing things that repel them like giant images of Carman Electra in their uni flat. This may not seem counter intuitive to most women but to the 18 year old male and the marketing director it might well be.

I' m back...

Sure I'm back down to ZERO on the number of people who find their way here... work won the battle for my time but hopefully the balance has now resumed.

The glory of the irrational

It’s a bit of a contradiction that the things that I find most captivating in culture are the ones that should never have happened.

As someone who works in strategy it is quite often easy to see the insights and read the motives behind the things that you see around you from ad campaigns to party political manoeuvres to public art. Generally the logical path that strategic thinking guides you down will land you in a territory that you can read retrospectively and learn to expect the outcomes prospectively. Ironic then that the most interesting things, to me at least, are those where it appears like there was some kind of strategic malfunction or mutation so that what you are seeing logically should never have come about because it just shouldn’t work. It’s even better when the outcome clearly does work. Does this mean that a strategy free project has a better chance of producing something special? Maybe in the chaos there will be lots of costly misses but the hits will be more original and culture changing.

My view would be that this is not the case. Instead I would look at it the other way round and say that if something does work in its execution then there is always a reason. The people who created it may not have fully appreciated this for themselves, more likely they were just living it out. As an example an artist such as Picasso or more likely still a band such as the Beetles could probably not have explained at the time why their contribution was so important as we can now. But these reasons why, are real and can be decoded. This may be done very badly or the theory develop over time, but still there is somewhere a truth about why something had the effect that it did.

If this truth is out there when we look back in hindsight then it must also be possible to seek it out in advance and act according to what you think it must be. That’s what any strategy should be looking for. The fact that so often the strategy gets it wrong or worse still seems to net out in the same ‘seemingly’ logical place as every other attempt is not a problem with the ambition and is instead just human error. Being ridiculous for the sake of it, or different from anything else, or exactly the opposite of the likely strategic response, could all be good recommendations. If they could be justified against all the insight and information available they could justify a freakish offspring that confuses or amazes or stands out from the general order of life. In an environment where it is getting harder and harder to be heard and people more and more adept at demoting things of low importance from conscious view, its not a bad line to take. So here’s to the sublime in the ridiculous.

Above is my first example. In a world that acts upon the intellegence of the lowest common demoninator and that shys away from every possible issue or threat that someone raises in a meeting, the chance of getting a piece of public art signed off that is based on a chaotic confustion of traffic signals in the middle of a round-about should never have made it to fruition. But happily it did.

“Moving from a brand image brand to a consumer experience brand”

Just found this little discussion piece. Think there is some interesting points about a new starting point for brand communications...
Brand image as a business driver is an outdated model for understanding how consumers relate to companies and brands.

It relies on an old assumption that was probably wrong when it was designed (primarily in agencies) and certainly is getting less and less right. This assumption is that brands can deliver a brand message in mass media and that this will in itself create brand love.

It was probably always wrong because it does not get a couple of fundamentals about the way that people understand, absorb information and gain ‘experience’ of the world around them.
Actually we react not to what people say but by what they do. Actions speak louder than words. The medium is the message is the way to explain this in a cultural or brand context.

It is certainly getting less and less right because a couple of the key pillars that drive it are breaking down. People do not have to listen to brand messages and do not consume the channels that deliver them in the same way. The only stuff that gets through are the things that people choose, things of value to the individual. Ads can be dialed down or ignored more and more easily because generally they do not offer anything of value.

On the other hand what is valued is the consumer experience that is delivered. Whether this be in a direct product related way such as help about how to use a product, or in a more extended general way such as an interesting project that involves them or captures their interest at least.

For this reason it does not make sense to think first about brand narratives or personality – the big brand message that could work as a piece of advertising… Instead the starting point should be to think about the consumer experiences that the brand delivers within and between every communications touch-point.

What kind of experience would this be?

Experience is how we learn stuff so what do you want to teach?
Experience is something we participate in by choice.
Experiences are live, lived and real things in our lives rather than brand image which is the big unknown incalculable
Experiences happen in destinations – retail and digital spaces
Experiences tie products and brands together
The experience of using a product should be married to the entire experience a brand gives... i.e. if your product offers creative thinking tools then so should the brand through every thing it does.

“So decide what you want the consumer experience to be and then work up and outwards from that”

The New Substance Economy

I have been off with the flu for the more than a week which gives you plenty of time to think off the beaten track. The notion that has been occuping most of my thoughts about the future of branded companies is the revolutionary affect that climate change will have on business. To try to think ahead about what the innovations are that will offer the win wins that are needed i.e. a way to do business in a sustainable way which in turn will offer a commercial advantage that will cause that company to make money and grow its goodness.

This is a big ask when so many of the ambitions of business seem to be set in opposition sustainability. The most obvious of these is the desire for producers to sell more and more of their produce with the ambition to dominate the market that they are in and with a view to opening up new markets in which to dominate in the future. There are obvious ways to make the making of things far more sustainable – it must be possible if a raw material intensive company like Innocent or M&S can make claims to be carbon neutral. If these kinds of companies do well then the model that says make more and more stuff is fine if that new product is taking share away from other products that do not work in a sustainable way. But generally this core need to shift ever greater volume is in some industries going to be challenged.  If people start to question simply consuming and disposing of things quickly and cheaply (as we must expect they will,) and also the regulations and trading efficiencies of being a company that relies on this business model become harder (as we expect they must,) then you have two very clear limitations on this way of doing business which could sweep in like wild fire in the next ten years or so. The internet was a revolution but initially it was seen simply as way to sell more and more products with greater efficiency – an extension of the normal day to day practices into a new channel. It was nothing when compared to this notion that even the basic way that most companies make money is being brought into question... that goes right to the core. So what can be done?

In the last few decades big consumer branded companies have shifted the focus away from the manufacturing side of their business which they now buy in from outside suppliers ‘just in time,’ and by the cheapest and easiest means possible, while they focus attention on marketing. This means understanding markets and consumer desires as well as trying to physically manufacture these things to create markets for those outsourced products. So if you go one step further and actually remove the product itself from the equation can it still be made to balance? Common sense would say not but if you think about it the idea of a company that focuses on services and consumer experiences rather than selling physical products is very normal.   It is also very much easier to make it work against the context of higher cost and more restricted production environments and lower consumer demand for carbon intensive products.

The idea of the experience economy is not new and there have been some things written already about the potential value of using this approach as a response to climate change, but it has not been fully adapted and expanded into this area. Nor has a framework been created to show companies how to seek out and monetise these new forms of value. There is strong research that shows that the purchase cycle of shiny new products makes people far less happy (even unhappy,) when held up against experience driven purchases. Branded companies who unlock this new type of value will by this account succeed in making their consumers more happy than those that rely on physical material based models which is in itself a compelling consumer based reason why these transitions should be successful now even before the strongest effect of a quickening climate change economy take hold.

Scoping this opportunity could be an important step to create a path to smooth this transition from the old carbon intensive physical kind of value creation to these new kinds of economic substance. I am going to have a think about what this framework would look like but at the moment it is fair to say that there are a couple of basic principles that I think will apply.

-The brand marketing function will need to take a lead in their development and execution
-They will be people centric and based on all the different types of cultural value that people can experience

But I’m sure there are more… Anyhow the ‘NEW SUBSTANCE ECONOMY’ seemed like a good name for this new kind of value.

Brand friendships... sweet or sour?

I think brands working together to create their own stories could be a bit of a threat to traditional advertising in the future. The thing is that a great meeting of companies can create mutual benefits and its own news where, in the best examples, very little communication is needed. You can do much of it virtually for free. And as they say in groups of three one always gets a left out. I can see how this might be the agencies who have until now been the owners or at least champions of brand value creation capabilities. Think apple + Nike which is a great example of 1+1= 3,4 or even 5. So what would be the rules? Can it work out for just any brand pairing and lead to consumers seeing the value?

A friend of mine sent me a link damning the launch of Opera Mini (web browser but shrunk down for mobile phones,) which was launched via a partnership with Mini. He is a cynical journalist so I thought I would give it the benefit of the doubt. On the surface there is a natural fit between what they want to say to people i.e. 'small and cool,' but actually there is nothing in common at all in the user experience i.e. web browsing on your phone is probably an arrestable offense if making a call gets you three points and a fine. It sits as close to the surface as you can get but has nothing more to offer up.

Whereas another example that I found recently which on the surface seems ridiculous, sits perfectly as a brand partnership when you boil it down.
Poetry publishing and Breakfast cereal..? Now there's lateral thinking. After a number of consecutive years sitting down day after day to read the same ingredients list, the same nutritional data, and the slightly varying antics of an advertising character relic, how refreshing or even enlightening it would be to wake up to better appreciation of poetry. And all this in one of the few moments where you are contained and rooted enough to give it whirl.

So then what would the learning be?

Choose your friends by starting with the consumer experience that you deliver, and then ask whether or not this new introduction would in itself add to or enhance this experience. If not then you won't create additional value, you will just create hot air and no balloon. Mini-Opera (unless I have missed something,) is an example of this. And while you are at it you could look at pretty much any marketing decision you make through this lens!

Myth Creation... "and then he punched a man's head clean off"

This is the moment in the new Rambo film when an ordinary blue collar guy just couldn't sit back any loner and watch the injustice around him. Mostly all he wants is the quiet life but if you piss him off he is capable of punching a mans head clean off. It seems pretty stupid but in its idiocy their is actually a glint of genius. How better could you sum up the sublime in the ridiculous that is another Rambo film than by creating this myth. I.e. the one story that people will tell ( and the irony is all part of it) that carries the meaning of the whole film. Either that or its just my office which as you might imagine is not impartial to the odd You tube link shared by email, where this kind of thing draws a crowd. To create a powerful myth for a product or idea is not easy but when you do its gold.

LANDMARKS IN THE CLIMATE CHANGE RESPONSE

John Grant is looking for some ideas to spread the news about a piece of climate change research that escalates the current thinking to say that what we could instead be facing is more of a tipping point of no return scenario. This factors in the role of positive feedback which basically says that the worse it gets, the worse it gets. In this scenario climate change will be spiralling, permanent and catastrophic. The first step is to make a compelling film that tells the story of the research. I am a bit of a newcomer to all this but this would be my take on how to make this film famous. If you want to read the research presentation it us attached here.

THE FILM AND ITS CONTENT

“Presentation 5”
The research itself is somewhat innocuously headed as presentation 5 (from a day of presentations that were given to government I think.) My first reaction was to think about how the naming and communication of the research needed some added drama and apocalyptic language. However in my head this started to sound like standing in the street with a sign saying ‘the end it nigh,’ rather than what this needs which is arguably a calmer clearer and more official communication. In this light an honest perhaps more unassuming title seemed to make more sense. Innocuous enough to plausibly be the document that changed the world. No drum roll - just the facts. For example… “The Dossier,”“Clause 4,” or “E=MC2.”

With this in mind ‘Presentation 5’ seemed to have more integrity then anything else I could think of. I could imagine an intrigue around “what is ‘Presentation 5?’ “Why is it so important?” “what does it mean for me?” The end of the world is paradoxically something that we hear far more often to the extent that we are used to it. It also begins to tell the story of a day at Westminster.

POPULARISATION OF THE SCIENCE
I was just about ok with the science but it needs some kind of democratisation to make it something that is easy to grasp and easy to share from person to person.
A greenhouse as a metaphor does not tell the story that there will be a point where it irreversibly escalates out of control. Maybe this is the wrong model to explain the research.

The core idea is that as climate change factors intensify, they in turn cause feedback that accelerates the process even further. I understand it best as being like a guitar held too close to an amplifier. The reverberation means that the sound just gets louder and louder until you have to move it away or the amp blows. This model is something that people need to grasp because at the moment you would more naturally assume that everything is proportional which leads to what seems like a logical ‘I’ll wait and see,’ philosophy i.e. the belief that if we take two steps the wrong way and it starts to look bleak then we can simply take two steps back to correct this.

Some new easy mental models would be required such as an;
- Echo chamber climate
- The Deafening Feedback effect
- The point of no return system

These examples all seem to explain the science a little bit more. This certainly needs to be brought to life.

VIEWING OF THE FILM
Anyone can make a viral film these days and pass it round. The 'You-tube' nature of the medium could mean that it may only be viewed as one marginal point of view, a group of opinions etc… I would suggest that to give it gravitas and the kind of necessary PR value more is needed and that it must be aired on Television. We all know that television is not a medium that is not just open to everyone and this is an important behaviour for this project. This will be in line with a public information film that would normally (or should be given to us by government.) A public information film by the public for the public which would add some meaning or even romance to the idea that this was the day that normal people mentally shifted into action mode.

I would suggest that the online movement should focus its attention on two things:
1. Getting the film aired on Television.
2. Turning this airing into a social monument

1. Getting the film aired on Television.
Use the digital space to start a movement to collect money towards the objective of a 90” primetime TV spot. The world wide media plan could visually take shape as the fund grew.
-Would Sky not show it for free?
-Would Richard Branson not fund it to be aired on domestic TV?
-Could we create a facebook widget selling a kooky icon that can be bought and given to other people as a contribution to the media budget?
-Could £1 contribution mean that everyone can feel mobilised?
-Would brands donate airtime to get it shown?

2. Turning it into a social monument
This is about turning that moment when the film is aired into a cultural landmark; a line in the sand. Ideas could revolve around…
-Where were you when ‘presentation 5’ was aired?
- Debate around the right to see the film versus the choice not too.
- Conversations around how do you feel before and after
-Marking the occasion through a behavior that goes with it like turning lights off when its on TV
-Twelve monkeys style ideas around looking forward to look back on the day that the world changed (which seemed innocuous at the time.) Why not talk to climate change aware actors and filmmakers to make a Hollywood movie that starts on the day this film was aired around the world as the trailer for the real airing.
-Big screens public viewings.
- Making the date famous.
-A new time frame perpetuated by the website i.e. BC, AD, “AP5”.
- Making it air simultaneously around the world i.e. the day the world integrated its consciousness.
- News around how it was information for the people by the people (funded by them not by government.)
- Name an era or epoch around the film the ‘POST P5 world’
-A special google home page icon to mark the day
-Set up the ambition that this film should be seen by all of the shareholders of the world i.e. the 6 billion ticket movie.
- Story of how the film was taken to all the corners of the earth to give as many people as possible the chance to see it.
-The story of how it was aired as on online broadcast in countries where it was not permitted to end up on TV.

Think that must be a record word count. In the end I think John just wants to make a simple film that does the science justice but its always worth thinking big before you adopt a sense of perspective : )

WEB 3.0. The synchronistic web

When writing the last post on speechification which is a site that curates spoken word content from around the internet and offers it in a number of downloadable formats, I was thinking about the bigger principle of what this represents. There is something modern about the way that it works by adding a qualitative service to the endless content that is available. It seems to be indicative of a new kind of value that the evolution of the internet ushers in i.e. content is now pretty much free in many cases but to create a special collection of this content that is selected in a very personal way is beyond any functional search tool and becomes a rare commodity.

A few clicks later through John Dodds' site I came to a post that sets out an entire system of these new kind of products called 'Generatives.'

This is the one that pertains to the behaviour of Speechifcation

Findability -- Where as the previous generative qualities reside within creative digital works, findability is an asset that occurs at a higher level in the aggregate of many works. A zero price does not help direct attention to a work, and in fact may sometimes hinder it. But no matter what its price, a work has no value unless it is seen; unfound masterpieces are worthless. When there are millions of books, millions of songs, millions of films, millions of applications, millions of everything requesting our attention -- and most of it free -- being found is valuable.

The others cited included, immediacy, personalisation, interpretation, authenticity, accessibility, embodiment, patronage.

It seems to be happening more and more in the digital space that just when you are thinking about something you randomly find the answer. In this case it did seem quite random but as we set up our own connections better and better and some of the above generative values develop I can see this Synchronistic way that that the internet seems to find you what you are looking for will happen more and more. This is pretty close to a description of what I have read about web 3.0 as the Semantic web. I.e. it will be able to read and understand content and thus make hugely more meaningful connections rather than creating links based on simply matching keywords together . I prefer the synchronistic description as it relates to how it will feel rather than how it works and makes it sound like something to really look forward to.

As for a new kind of generative value in a world where everything else is free - I am going to sleep on that one but it sounds like a pretty big idea!

FAME versus CELEBRITY

I Was listoning to a Podcast on celebrity as suggested by Speechification which is a great idea to curate spoken word content from around the internet. It was generally structured around the difference between Fame and Celebrity. This difference was that Celebrity is an object that can just occur on its own. Its an end in its own right and is not backed up by anything. Fame is subject to something else. Its a by-product or substance that can emerge from things that happen by merit. It struck me that this would be a good way to illustrate the role of the new kind of agency. A lot of companies go looking for what is the equivalent of Celebrity which is essentially being famous for nothing. I would tend to put Lynx in this category - a made up attribute or lifestyle to go with something pretty unremarkable; the only real Lynx effect is to repel women. Advertising is full of them, 'the hit of the real fruit,' 'the coke side of life' etc... etc... But celebrity us ultimately unfulfilling and temporary. I would argue that a celebrity brand idea will always have the same fate if its ultimately lacks substance. The new kind of agency could start by setting out that they were more like a colleague than an agent. Finding projects that you can work on together that will warrant fame rather than trying to magic celebrity out of nothing. A cooperation or an association would be a better thing to describe what that would be like rather than an agency.

Second hand Rainbows

Sounds like a song title by an emotional rock outfit from LA. In fact they would probably like it so much that they'd use it for the Album title. No post really just liked the image... if they want it for the cover they can have it.

The Daily Me Readership up by 1 point

It often seems like no matter how many times things happen there is a tendency to get locked into a short sighted view of the word. I.e a few days of hot weather and you forget what season it is. This is especially true when it comes to technology adoption. The initial hype is always too much to early and the 'what were they thinking,' hangover is always quick and final. Of course some things do just die a death while others pick themselves up from their post hype exile and naturally and gradually move into our homes until one day you just wake up and see that there is a new piece of furniture that you hadn't noticed; or in the case of the internet a new house all together. Of course some things do go away but I would say that the massive hype is a clue that there must be some kind of far sighted potential in the subject otherwise journalists would not get so interested in the story. I saw a presentation on second life yesterday that seems to draw a line underneath the notion. I am not sure where it will end up but a more dynamic way to navigate and interface with the internet and other people online has to be the future (if not to create a load of pointless islands.) Anyhow I had the same experience over the weekend when I suddenly remembered an idea that has been kicking around for ever but for most of its life has been banded about as the stereo typical digital dream that hindsight showed us didn't come true. It was only after I spent a couple of hours building my very own Daily Me on Bloglines that it occurred to me that my news consumption had just plotted a new cross on the curve!

Increase in numbers who play on the 'Video Games'

I came across this today and found it quite sweet somehow. Its the use of the word 'the' that looks totally out of place. It reminds me of the film tron which was a world where the 'computers' were full of individual people called 'files' which just so happened to look like their 'users,' (just one file per user of course.) I wonder what words we are finding awkward and putting into sentences in slightly unusual ways, that we will look back at fondly seeing almost naivety in how little we were to know that they were going to become such ubiquitous norms of everyday life. My guess' would be that we might find books called;

'How to master the carbon costs' i.e. the idea that we did not equate the carbon cost of every action will seem quaint but also almost blind.

'How to master the virtual worlds.' (I know second life has flopped but when the interface, application, and integration is all sorted I think this will just end up becoming an more dynamic way of accessing the internet.)

Any more for any more?

The WAGS vs Paris Hilton

I was just reading an article in Fast Company where Alex Bogusky (the name that gets dropped from Crispin Porter,) was being interviewed about 'brand fame.' His favourite example of branding genius was Paris Hilton in her ability to stay in the news without bringing anything to the table. The argument goes that as an agency what they look to do is take a brand and personify it a little then make it famous. BBH used to talk about the 'fame factory,' but I think they have dropped it now? I agree that if you don't make news and are just relying on hammering a message using traditional media metrics then you are nowhere, but also that Fame is its own end. As Paris demonstrates perfectly its being seen without substance. I am not sure treating brands like people is a good idea. It sounds a bit fake personal.

My choice would be the WAGS (In-ger-land!) They represent a cultural invention - a lifestyle which denotes a behavior i.e. a WAG is something you can become. They have even helpfully created a video handbook to how you can do this. You could of course argue that this is implicit in the fantasy lifestyle of Paris Hilton but as a lesson for branding the WAG shows us how to invent a lifestyle which could change how people behave and hence consume whereas Paris just shows us how to become a famous person or famous brand but without how to use this to change anything... Or in this case change it back if we put our minds to it.

Reinventing the Medium

Van Gogh suffered his entire life to try and force his way through the outward appearances of life into a new form of expression captured through art. In doing this he started everything we call modern art (FYI I have been watching Simon Schama DVD's.)

I also just caught a moment of Tim Burton being interviewed by Melvin Bragg talking about Van Gogh paintings as an inspiration. There is an obvious comparison in the way that he makes films that reveal themselves in the feelings and atmosphere that they create rather than the stories that they tell (FYI I have just been to see the Sweeney Todd film.)

Apart from it being more interesting to alter and interfere with the medium than to simply add to its body of comparable content, there must be other benefits. Well change the medium and culture can change with it; the two are part of the same system. Then you can start to work it back the other way. In other words to think about a change in culture you can think about the right change in the mediums that shape it to bring it about.

"Prada doesn’t do participation"

That’s something that I have heard a few times, (not sure why it tends to be Prada that gets selected,) as the example of a luxury brand that proves the rule that the conventional branding model of shaping an aspirational out of reach image is alive and well. The implication being that the new school collaborative kind of model is either a fad, isn’t to be trusted, or works in some situations but is not for everybody. As far as I can tell there are a four ways to assess this if you assume that a) Prada does not do participation marketing and b) this is something that serves them pretty well as they are generally successful.

1- Nor should it. As soon as it does then the distance, exclusivity and special-ness of the brand becomes dilute and less well… Prada
2- The new type of brand is made by communities and collaborative techniques is right only for the new school brands but the old school brands should stick to what they know and what has made them successful till now.
3- It varies by category. Some categories are driven by image and in these aspirational advertising is still the order of the day. For everyone else consumers can and should take centre stage.
4- Collaboration is universally the new currency and even though there are multiple currencies in circulation at the moment the older image driven approaches will become less and less effective

My tendency is to be warmer to the descriptions further down the list though as ever there is no certain answer. I can’t help thinking that the collaborative approach is just the new market situation and therefore affects everyone.

So the task is to find your place in the new landscape. And everyone’s place would be different. For high fashion maybe it would not start by asking ‘how do we come off our pedestal and start to take our lead from what consumers say and want to do by way of getting involved,’ that would not sit very well. It would probably start the other way round and stem from the brand view of the world.

A good starting point would be to think about all of the potential exclusive experiences that the brand could possibly deliver. The better these experiences were the more likely people would want to get involved. I watched a programme once about Haute Couture where it showed the treatment that the top fashion houses have given to its best customers over the years e.g. hand painted sketches of individual new pieces with samples of the materials attached were hand delivered.

I’m sure a modern day equivalent would be pretty easy… i.e. famously the man from Prada delivers individual photo prints of the new collection, is essentially a creative piece of Direct Mail. The select group of people that receive this special treatment amongst a whole host of others would be as useful an ally as the communities that fuel any of the new school inclusive brands.

FIAT 500 against the Machine

I was just thinking today that it would be so easy to think of a small car that had street cred, was cheap and had really good fuel efficiency. Quite a lot of the indulgences of consumerism seem unshakable but this one just seems like common sense. Then I saw a 5 second ad that was announcing where we are in the count down to the launch of the Fiat 500. It seems to have it all. And the countdown seemed like a nice way to usher it in. What a great project it would be to launch that car. A few clicks later and a lot of the romance is lost. I started to get the overwhelming feeling that FIAT are going to totally mess up the marketing. It's screaming for the unveiling of the new kind of cool but now I'm thinking whether a retro cool product can take the onslaught of retired marketing. (Warning if you click through to this web site beware of what sounds like a cheering crowd of pleased Italian people as the background music) . Maybe better to make your own...