Branding, Culture, Politics, and Everything in Between

I’ve been reading Joseph Pine’s and James Gilmore’s “Authenticity”, which was published to much fanfare last year. I’m in the very beginning, and I doubt that I will read it cover to cover any time soon as I’m now basically picking stuff from it for my thesis. But so far it seems like a very good read and a worthy heir to their previous book, “The Experience Economy”.

One thing got me thinking, though. In the beginning of the book they outline that consumers have 4 “dominant sensibilities” when it comes to products:

1. Availability
2. Cost
3. Quality
4. Authenticity

Also, the authors state that we now live in a world of “abundance over scarcity”, meaning that we have more choice in product categories than ever before. Also, through services like Amazon, eBay and price comparing search engines availability has become democratized. Everything is available, anywhere in the world. This of course puts pressure on price, but I guess the main price driver has been copycat brands (and especially in groceries, retail brands and the like). Quality is also pretty much democratized, as lean and supplier-based organizations can deliver equal or comparable quality.

So it seems like items 1-3 have been sort of taken care of for the consumer. So what about number 4? Why are consumers craving for authenticity? The trend of chastising people who buy, for example, fake Louis Vuitton bags in places like Thailand is increasing. People want the real deal, even if it costs them more. Why?

Because if you could get a Mac for a lower price, with similar quality, and obtain it easily, where’s the identity value? Where’s the bragging rights? Consumers are creating scarcity by labeling products and brands in ways that other brands can’t simply can’t copy. They are creating stories around products that make them valuable to show off to their friends. In a way, consumers have rushed to defend the brands they use to express themselves with, which I think is fascinating and very counter-intuitive to the current anti-marketing atmosphere.

That’s why a Mac is still a Mac, and you wouldn’t even DREAM of showing a cheap knock-off.

PS. I don’t know if Pine & Gilmore touch on this idea of consumers creating scarcity to re-attain the identity value of their brands, but it was just the first idea that came to mind when I started reading the book.fucking tight pussy and tits
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I’ve been thinking what would be the fastest way to measure if an identity myth is resonating within an audience, sort of like the quick and dirty way of testing myths in a given market. Companies don’t have the luxury of trying different identity myths in different markets, because the risk of hitting the wrong myth is a bit scary, plus the corrective maneuvers take time. But I think I’ve found the perfect venue to test identity myths and get an immediate response from the audience: the WWE!

You telling me the Hulkster isn’t a cultural icon?

Think about it: the WWE writes new plot lines for their wrestlers pretty much every week. They experiment with different ideas and see what sticks. If something catches on, they milk it until people become bored with it. If it doesn’t catch on, they let it die and try again with a new one, and really fast at that. The writing in the WWE is all mythmaking. They play with basic character types, such as villains, heroes, lovers, jesters etc. They especially play with the notion of the going against “the establishment” (the WWE organization and Vince McMahon, the owner), which seems to constantly find its mark within the WWE’s core constituency – lower class white men.

There’s a case from not too long ago that shows how adaptive the WWE can be. In 2002, the famous Hulk Hogan returned to the WWE as a villain, but the audience started treating him as a hero. The writers quickly adapted to this turn of events and in just a few weeks they rewrote his character to be a hero. Hogan even went back to his 80s costume which had made him an icon in American pop culture. Hogan’s comeback drew huge TV ratings and even made headlines in traditional media. Hogan’s comeback became a movement and Hogan was greeted with long standing ovations at various arenas.

Why did Hogan’s comeback register so highly with the fans? Well, in 2002 I believe America was still riding a patriotic high, combined with the shock of 9/11. Hogan represented a character from America’s near past: a forgotten hero riding back to the ring to restore order. The writers of the show went even further with this: they had management “ban” Hogan, only to bring him back as a “disguised” Mr. America. They amped up the patriotism and the crowd ate it up.

I’d be nice to watch a few episodes now and try to dissect what kind of myths are resonating with the WWE’s constituency. I’m guessing the Iraq war, the Subprime crisis (I’m sure there are more than a few WWE fans that were affected by it) and the looming depression register highly with this crowd, but I don’t know what kind of myth treatment would hit its mark.

edit. And amazingly, just as I had posted this I went to my reader and lo and behold what I found after a few minutes of skimming: PSFK: Why The 80s Return Again and Again. Hulk Hogan is featured as an example. The article ends at very interesting thought, btw:

On a slightly different angle, John Harris in the Guardian argues that popular culture is increasingly defined by an unhealthy refusal to let go of the past fueled by technology that refuses to allow us to forget it. He says:

Think about it this way: whereas, say, 1968 and 1958 denoted two different worlds, how is it that 2008 and 1998 seem so close? Pop is a pretty good place to start. The idea that the people’s music was ever defined by built-in obsolescence now looks absurdly quaint. Last year’s highest-earning US tour was by the Police, while over here, the world was seemingly tilted off its axis by the reunion of the three surviving members of Led Zeppelin.

… [It] might be to recognise that fixating on the past is an in-built aspect of the human condition, but limited technology used to keep it in check. We had space and productive capacity only for so much stuff: a hidden hand cleared the cultural world of outdated clutter. And now? Bandwidth and memory grow exponentially, TV channels extend into the distance, and providing the means by which the classes of 77, 87 and 97 can get back in touch is a cinch. The same technology that we once thought would propel us into a fast-changing future stokes nostalgic appetites and condemns us to a present so laden with repetition that it’s beginning to feed back on itself.

Very interesting idea. And now my post has snowballed into something much more interesting to boot.mature porn pics
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I don’t think I need to lecture here how great TED talks are, but this talk was so good and thought provoking that I had to share it. TED talks often manage to engage and create new ways of thinking, but rarely do the speakers manage to flip your entire world view upside down. Michael Pollan manages to do that in just 17 minutes.

I sent the link to my cousin, who’s doing his master’s in philosophy. He said that the whole “man vs. nature” type of thinking is not universal, and it’s mostly a western way of seeing the world. Ancient Greeks divided the world into the laws of “man” and “nature”, or “nomos” and “fysis”. This type of thinking is one of the founding values of our culture: man and nature are at odds. If one thrives, the other must secede. According to my cousin, the Chinese for example see the world a lot more like Pollan explains it: they can’t understand this notion of man and nature being at odds. I find this fascinating.

If you start watching the presentation, I urge you to watch it all the way through. The last 7 minutes are the real revelation. I hope we start seeing farms like that here in Europe as well. And I hope legislators take heed too.

OK, my last few posts have touched cultural branding in name only, so I thought I’d write about a phenomenon that is a prime example of cultural branding. I’m going to talk about the gym that trained the actors and stunt men for the movie “300″.

Would you go to a gym that trained these guys?

300 was one of the biggest box office surprises of 2007, grossing over 450 million worldwide while costing only 65 million to make. Critics blasted the movie for being over the top macho, its black and white good guy vs. bad guys treatment and corny dialogue. Fans of the movie loved it for the very same reasons.

One of the basic tenets of cultural branding is that brands (and other cultural products, such as movies) can work as pressure valves in soothing contradictions that plague society. From a cultural branding standpoint, 300 is just another “redemption” movie for us confused and somewhat emasculated modern men who are torn between conflicting expectations as to what it means to be a “man”. 300 provided us men with an ideal male role model to aspire to in these confusing times, a real man’s man but with a touch of softness and idealism. By the way, I believe that the crisis of the “modern man” is the longest running societal contradiction that has been available for marketers since the 1960s. Most societal contradictions span a decade or so, but this crisis has yet to be resolved. The last big movie wave that addressed this contradiction happened in the early 2000s, when Gladiator, the Patriot and the Perfect Storm hit the theaters. At the time, the movies were popular especially among women, as all the movies featured loving father figures that still showed a masculine side when forced to defend one’s family. I remember at the time reading an article in either Rolling Stone or Vanity Fair that “this is the kind of man that modern women want” and I remember the article feeling sort of sorry for men as there’s no possible way most men could live up to these expectations. 300 is a sort of sequel to this societal discussion, but in my view from a male perspective – how men want to see themselves.

300 in itself would make for a good case for how a movie managed to hit a nerve in today’s society, but I want to take this example a bit further. After the movie came out, one of the main questions on everybody’s lips was “how the hell did those guys get in such good shape?” Well, the answer was to be found in a remote private gym in Utah called Gym Jones.

Gym Jones is as Spartan as the soldiers in the movie itself.

Brands become icons in part when they become “props” for myth stories portrayed in cultural products, such as movies, books or articles. Well, Gym Jones got a lot of publicity that linked it favorably to 300, which itself became a buzzworthy topic in fitness circles. The gym itself was as crude and Spartan as the movie itself. Fitness magazines featured the cast and crew’s unorthodox training methods and grueling workout sessions. The gym in many ways embodied the ideals of the movie of sacrifice and manliness. Because of this credible linkage to the movie 300, Gym Jones was already on its way to iconic status. However, brands become even more iconic if they display a certain literacy and fidelity to an ethos or ideal instead of just making money and going for broad based popularity (think Harley Davidson and Hell’s Angels, again). Gym Jones can hardly be accused of being after broad popularity and money, as per their website:

Whoever said, “there are no stupid questions” was wrong. We are not interested in helping beginners, the indolent, or the ignorant. Contacting us implies you have done your utmost to become informed through other avenues and experience. It means you understand Gym Jones is not a mainstream facility using conventional methods to address sport or work-related challenges. Finally, by sending a note you acknowledge understanding that we are not waiting around for it.

Before composing a note please read these statements:

E-mail asking for dietary advice will be deleted.
E-mail asking us to supply an individually tailored training program will be deleted.
E-mail containing the question, “Where do I buy/get/find?” will be deleted.

The gym is not interested in making money or making it “big” and they let you know it. It’s not a gym that everybody can get into, but it’s a gym that everybody would WANT to train in. If you look at their training journals, you see that they train like crazy. And if you look at the “knowledge” section of their website, you will learn that they are very uncompromising in their ethos. They aren’t your average “smile while on the treadmill in your David gear” gym. They don’t care if you don’t like them.

Gym Jones fills many of the characteristics of iconic brands: it’s situated in rural Utah, far removed from the commercial and political elites. Its ethos speaks to an acute contradiction in our society (men confused with society’s expectations of them) in a credible and very charismatic way. It has credible linkages to cultural products (300) that bolster its iconic status. But most of all, Gym Jones seems authentic in its championing of a cause. I doubt that the owners of the gym are even interested in broadening their popularity, but that’s the whole appeal behind it.