Sorry for the lack of posts recently. I’ve been travelling and I’m just settling in to Toronto, where I’ll be spending the next few months at York University as a visiting PhD student. But just a quick riff today. Via ARGNet, “from the intense, provocative speech given by No Mimes Media’s Maureen McHugh” (emphasis mine):
ARGs are dead. But Transmedia is lightning in a jar.
ARGs have failed to break into mass media, because the interaction is in the wrong place. Right now, the interaction is finding the story. When someone doesn’t know what to do next, it’s easy to stop, and every time we ask someone to change platforms, we lose audience. But the experience of transmedia is powerful, immersive and emotional. We have to find new ways to tell stories across multiple platforms using interactivity.
It’s evolve or die.
Not too long ago, it felt like ARGs were the only real spearhead that were driving transmedia storytelling (especially in the movie industry, think the Batman and Ironman 2 ARGs). But I think McHugh is onto something. ARGs cater to the most motivated segments of audiences, and I guess that’s partially why they’ve been used with superhero movies, because of the inbuilt, often hardcore, fanbase that was sure to play the games. But if transmedia storytelling is to become mainstream, it has to cater to the more casual audiences as well. We’re only scratching the surface in that regard.
How to best explain why this ad works while many other ads that have tried to leech off of hip hop have failed?
Because of the way the hamster takes his red hood off in the beginning, that’s why.
Whoever made this ad really did their homework. The amount of details in this ad is almost staggering, and they all contribute to the authenticity of the aesthetic.
It looks like Nokia has in many ways outsourced meaning creation to the cultural industries. Not a bad strategy per se, but a little unimaginative at least. Also, I worry that Nokia doesn’t have a clear idea as to how they want their brand to be treated in the movies they’ve struck deals with. For the most part it just looks like traditional placement to me.
Ad-Age has an article that shows that Nokia is going even further with outsourcing branding to outsiders, and I don’t just mean advertisement agencies. The article is aptly titled “Nokia Asks Advertisers to Brand Its Phones”. From the article:
If you brand it, they will buy. That’s the hope of Finnish handset maker Nokia, which is hoping mobile devices wrapped in a corporate logos will appeal to U.S. consumers.
For an undisclosed fee, the world’s biggest cellphone maker is offering advertisers the right to brand the mobile handset. Advertisers choose a Nokia phone that complements their demographic target, splash the handsets and the accessories with their visual identities, embed some mobile content into it and wrap it all up in packaging plastered with their logo.
[...]
The idea is for brands to put “content in the hands of the most potent brand advocates — people who like the brand … so much that they want to be seen with it,” said David Kohl, Nokia interactive head of sales-Americas.
I’m not entirely sure this is a well-thought out strategy. Brands are clustered into meaning groups and not all brands are “compatible” with each other. Some brands are more defined by what they are not. I don’t like the idea of a brand that’s compatible with every other brand. Isn’t that sort of saying your brand is basically meaningless? I hope Nokia does some major coordination with which brands the advertisers are allowed to strike deals like these.
Nice post by Living Brands. I especially liked his (post author John Howard) list on what it means to be iconic:
1. The truly iconic affects us whether we like it are not, unlocking instinctive memories, emotions and beliefs
2. The image of the truly iconic is more important than, even transcending, the actual reality of its subject
3. The truly iconic subject should be understandable via visual shorthand.
4. The truly iconic is immediately recognisable, the visual equivalent of an unmistakable catchphrase
Read the whole post, it’s very insightful. I really hope that “iconic” doesn’t join the ranks of “authentic” and “green” as terms totally diluted by over use and misuse – especially in a branding.
A small remark though on the images used at the end of the post. “Iconic” in terms of branding doesn’t mean that a brand should necessarily leech on MORE iconic visual shorthand, for example (like the examples used in the post), a brand should look to become an icon in itself, like a VW Beetle or a bottle of Coke.
Here’s the second guest lecture I did for the “Brands in Strategic Marketing” course at HSE. A lot of stuff crammed into 45 minutes, but I think I got the message through.
There were a few example videos I used, and here they are, in order of presentation. They’re in the embedded presentation as well, but some folks might want the direct links.
In this lecture I went through the most important findings of my thesis. At the end of the lecture you’ll find my model of brand building by shifting focus from one brand building model to another as the brand matures. I’d welcome comments on that.
I’ve been thinking why Snickers would choose sort of has-been celebrities to endorse their brand. My guess is that they did some research and found that their brand had an outdated taint to it. I, for example, recall Snickers ads painting it as an performance enhancer of sorts for athletes, which I guess just wasn’t working anymore. The brand was taking itself a bit too seriously.
In the Mr T. ads, you still had a bit of that performance enhancing angle and masculinity left, albeit tongue in cheek. In these new ads, they’ve gone more further out with the irony and self-mocking humor. Both have a celebrity conversing in an unexpected situation with a geeky looking “normal” person.
The first spot features an overweight and out of shape Patrick Ewing dunking (unprovoked) on some fellow name “Ryan” in an exaggerated fashion, with mock posturing after the fact. It is also suggested that the geeky guy knows Ewing as they refer to each other as “Patrick” and “Ryan”. After the dunk sheepishly says “sorry” in the tone you’d say sorry to a friend you’ve just pulled a prank on.
The other ad has Master P asking for the geeky guy’s (called Josh) opinion on an extremely large, diamond-studded “P” necklace that he is intent on buying. I love the geeky guys reaction: a nonchalant but still emotional “I like it!”, as if he was expecting his opinion to be of great value to somebody like Master P.
This slightly out of place chumminess between these somewhat washed up stars and the geeky normal guys plays great and is oddly fascinating. The clumsy wordplay at the end of each spot adds to the self-depreciating humor as well (“Patrick Chewing” and “Master P-Nuts”).
By using guys like Patrick Ewing and Master P and treating the brand in this self-mocking way, Snickers is showing that it’s aware of its current cultural standing, and it is willing to laugh about it. This treatment sort of mixes Snapple’s famous use of “weird” celebrity endorsers (Richie Sambora, Howard Stern, Ivan Lendl) from back in the day with Microsoft’s “I’m a PC” campaign, where Microsoft showed that they know Apple has been talking smack about them in their ads, and here’s what they think of it.
Looking at these example’s it seems to me that confronting your brand’s current meaning(s) head on, and then spinning it to a new direction or making light of it, seems to be the best way to manage it. Some brands fail to show literacy as to what their brand is currently about, and try to introduce a new image/myth/meaning sort of by force. This might have worked in the old days of mass media, but as consumers are more connected now and brand meanings flow freely and fast and are affirmed by consumers more firmly, people can sort of say “that’s not right, right?” when a new, conflicting myth/meaning is introduced.
Put it this way, it’s hard to enter the conversation (I hate that saying on brand interaction, but it fits here) with the intention of steering it without first understanding and acknowledging what the discussion is about. I think Snickers has done a good job with its entry to the conversation regarding itself (especially the Ewing ad played wonderfully with the chocolate-bar-as-performance-enhancer cliches, with exploding backboard and everything). Now we’ll have to see if Snickers’ self-depreciating humor allows them to steer the conversation as well.
The Challenges and Opportunities of Managing Brand Meaning in a Changing Media Landscape from a Marketer’s Perspective*
That’s more or less it, for now. I’m knee deep in articles and books now trying to make sense of the whole field. I’m trying to combine Holt’s theory of cultural branding (combined with McCracken’s writings on meaning management) with Jenkins’ theory of converging media culture. I always felt that Holt’s work, which relied heavily on TV spots in its analysis, could be developed further in creating a cultural brief that encompasses all media channels, not just TV.
Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.
I’ve accepted a position at Aalto University’s Media Factory initiative as a researcher. This also marks the start of my doctorate studies. Yes, I’m aiming for a PhD in marketing.
This is basically what Media Factory does:
1. Media technologies
Paper and press technologies, (mass-produced print product/art print), ‘after paper’, the digital media, the future Internet
2. Media production and management
Journalistic working processes, interactivity, the public as a producer, formation of information, media economics and management
3. Media concepts and communications behaviour
Media concepts such as periodicals, Internet applications, games, the cinema, and audiovisual media. Communications behaviour such as the consumers’ use of media, media psychology and basic research on media concepts.
I’m interested in all three, but #3 is where I aim to really specialize. My interest is in how media (new and old) work in diffusing cultural meanings, especially on the internet where meanings flow so much faster but in many directions.
Wish me luck. I’m going offline for two weeks, I’m going to have a little vacation before I engulf myself in research.
I had a slight backlog on my TED videocasts and I went through a few them today. One of the videos I watched was Joseph Pine’s 2004 TED talk. This was before he had published the book Authenticity with Jim Gilmore, but this presentation is pretty much on the same stuff that’s being talked about in the book.
The book is essentially about authenticity becoming our (the consumers) primary buying sensitivity. First goods, then services, and now even experiences have become commoditized, so marketers have no choice but to offer authentic experiences. Or at least sell their experiences as more authentic as the competitors’. I had blogged about the book when it came out and I was going to revisit the subject at some point, but I never got around to it. But this is a good reason as any to revisit the subject.
One of the main tenets that stuck with me with the book was this little 2×2 diagram that Pine also had in his TED talk. It’s a screencap, so apologies for the quality.
The diagram has two axis: “it is what it says it is” and “it is true to itself”. What they mean is best illustrated via examples. The “Fake Fake” is rather self-explanatory, but for “Real Fake” Pine says that a tour at Universal Studios is a good example of this: it is real and it is what it says it is (being in Hollywood and a real studio), but it’s fake in the sense that it’s not really “true” to Hollywood because it offers a view behind the scenes, removing the veil of mystery behind Hollywood films. With “Fake Real” Pine says that Disneyworld is the perfect example: it’s not what it says it is – “It’s not a magic kingdom”, as Pine says – but it’s wonderfully true to itself in the sense that the experience is so wonderfully immersive and passionate, that it really captures the feeling of “magic kingdom”.
Which brings us to “Real Real”. When I was watching the TED talk it hit me that for cultural brands, of course, the goal is to embody both categories of “real”: they are both what they say they are and they are true to their selves. The “Real Real” distinction is a new way to conceptualize and complement Douglas Holt’s distinctions ofbrand literacy and brand fidelity.
Holt says that brand’s should demonstrate an understanding of its supporting demographic’s “populist world” and its custom’s and idioms (literacy). The brand should also understand its place in this populist world and play to it (like Harley does to biker culture and Apple to the creative industries). This is where the “it is what it says it is” comes to play: a brand must neither overstate nor deny its place in the populist world. Examples of brands trying to claim a stake in a subculture and failing are too numerous to list (especially brands trying to ride the hip hop craze in the late 90s), but the shoe brand Timberland tried to do the opposite, it tried to deny its place as a hip hop icon and suffered for it. As for brand fidelity, Holt argues that brands should honor their roots and sacrifice pandering to the masses by thinking populist world first. I think this can be seen as “staying true to itself” in many ways.
In short: brands should first understand what they are and what they mean to a given populist world (build brand literacy) so that they can “be what they say they are”. If no such links to relevant subcultures exist, then a brand should look to build and nurture meanings that have the potential to become such connections. Once the brand understands itself and its place, it should look to nurture this connection (show brand fidelity/be true to itself) and not alienate its core constituency as the brand grows in popularity.
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