The beauty of social media

Last week I praised companies such as Amazon, EBay, Glassdoor & Reevoo – as recommendations are playing such a big part in their business model and in the satisfaction the individual receives. It’s fantastic and hopefully an inspiration for more companies to give individuals a platform to voice their praise & their concerns. An inspiration for companies to use their strengths and positions within their industries to stand in the corner of the individual.

And that’s also the beauty of social media, isn’t it, the unfiltered interaction between individuals. The exchange, that can’t be controlled and can only be influenced by soft power. The ability to spread the word. The individual can be at least as influential as any corporate or as any government. Mervyn Dinnen has described the four stages that excite him as “Connect, Engage, Share, Learn”. I agree – that’s what makes social media so immensely important, enjoyable and such a force.

But - as Ben Parker said – with great power comes great responsibility: To nurture and foster this culture, this gem of pure peer to peer recommendations, interaction and engagement, it might be good to learn from other strands of media.

Let’s remind ourselves of the editorial independence of traditional media outlets. I know, there are some where the boundaries between editorial and commercial are blurred, but there are others such as the Daily Mail (whether you agree with its views or not) where it continues to exist. That is good and indeed important.

We – the social media – would do good to follow this example, declare commercial interests and influences wherever possible, as well as include diverse and wide reaching views. I have to admit, I quite like what @Monster_Works does with this last point in the US.

Let’s remind ourselves of academic research and its standard of accountability and transparency. Isn’t it cool how the most important part of any academic research is the section on methodology, when the authors explain their creation of reality? That gives such a great insight and invaluable understanding of the context.

Referencing is a given in its importance, in giving credit where credit is due and in therefore offering an extended reading list.

We – the social media – can learn from the standards, as it enables us to verify the source of facts that are given and assumptions that are made, whilst appreciating the fact that most blogs are just opinion pieces.

Let’s remind ourselves that blogging et al is such much more than just another business channel, that Twitter is more than just place to moan when we don’t find instant gratification, that Facebook updates and groups have consequences and affect people.

We – the social media – are doing better if we remember: We are citizens first, and consumers second (via @JerryKetel).

The most important point is that we continue to share our experiences, our dreams and our different perspectives and opinions, that we debate and learn. And as a result make life a whole lot more interesting, satisfactory and better.

Painting by Clay Vajgrt

Posted in Brand, Life, Marketing, Social Media.

Tagged with academic research, Brand, Daily Mail, Editorial Independence, Marketing, Monster, Social Media.

4 comments

By Felix – August 31, 2010

Listen to me!

So, I recently moved house. It wasn’t the smoothest of experiences. The @HRD‘s tweet “Is it unreasonable to expect people to do their f***ing jobs? Clearly I must be old fashioned….” describes the people I was dealing with and my feelings towards them quite precisely. I had to fight the urge to fire off some nasty tweets or write a name & shame blog post. There were several stages in the process where I felt powerless, angry and alone.

You could say, that’s just the way it is, that this is to be expected. As a friend of mine told me during the process: “What do you expect? Just think about it, if you were any good in law, you’d practice proper law, not conveyancing”.

But that’s not me, I want to change things, and for every negative experience there’s a good one and only through feedback and recommendations can we change perceptions and lift the standards of industries. So I went to the four big property portals to leave some feedback, but nowhere could I share, warn, recommend. Not even about the estate and letting agents, let alone the lawyers, surveyors and removal companies (if you ever need one Bishop moves is outstanding). There was no opportunity for me to leave any feedback!

Funnily enough, how I felt was similar to the feeling that many job seekers had described to me. And then it shook me, yes, we at Jobsite have launched Recruitrank – a tool that lets candidates feedback on their experience with Recruitment Agencies – but is that enough?

It made me think: Do we really push the envelop far enough? Do we really do everything in our power to make job hunting (or house hunting) or whatever we work in, as enjoyable and rewarding for the individual as we really can make it? Do we really use our unique knowledge, position and experience? Do we really provide a platform that creates a better world and helps to grow a happier society full of decent, self-determined individuals?

I certainly have some more ideas on how we could expand Recruitrank in the near future, and how we can take further steps to ultimately make job hunting as enjoyable as possible. It also gives me even more respect for companies like Amazon, eBay, Glassdoor and (the even purist) Reevoo, who either build their business around recommendations and feedback or see it as an integral part of it.

Painting by Clay Vajgrt

Posted in Brand, Life, Recruitment.

Tagged with Amazon, Ebay, Estate Agents, experience, Glassdoor, job seekers, Moving, RecruitRank, Reevo.

5 comments

By Felix – August 27, 2010

The Beta Brand: The 4 principles of Brand Impermanence – by Greg Fuller

This post is part of Greg Fuller’s guest series on Brand Impermanence. The first post explains the background and concept of Brand Impermanence: The search for nirvana is over.

1) Exist in permanent beta

This is a particularly important principle for today’s brand and product guardians. It’s the idea that a looping continual dialogue will be formed between brands and people. By giving them access to imperfect goods and services, nothing is certain or finished and this uncertainty engages the mind.

A brand that says “Here’s what we’ve got now, but something better is on the way,” forms a relationship of mutual self-interest with the customer. The developer who says, “This product is final. We won’t be doing anything more with it. This is as good as it gets,” gives the buyer no incentive to participate in a continuing relationship. Beta empowers the customer to decide what’s good enough. Nothing’s set in stone. Nothing is absolute[1]

This is not the exclusive domain of web 2.0 and software giants. It says we are always improving and what’s good enough for other companies isn’t good enough for us. I believe other brands in sectors such as FMCG, retail and finance should take this approach on board.

People already have the ability to make instant decisions on the brands they choose. See the Shopsavvy app[2] for an example of real time price comparison. Beta brands are open to this transparency while still remaining an expert and differentiating voice

The beta brand is a reaction to new methods of marketing where recommendations by personal acquaintances and opinions posted by online consumers are the most trusted form of advertising globally[3].

There needs to be a decision over how much of the brand you are willing to open up. Changing the brand name or logo every week plainly wouldn’t work. However, flexibility and agility of brand identity or tone of voice could be very effective, particularly if there was a constant flow of consumer feedback.

It could be as simple as crowd sourcing ad campaigns[4] to harness the creative department of 500 people or perhaps a drinks brand that produces a beta range of soft drink flavours? This could work with pack design and be specific to regions or countries. It is an adaptable, proactive and relevant approach.

Beta is made for the digital age and reflects Brand Impermanence in its purist form, but it should also be a mindset for brands to succeed in the age of uncertainty.

2) Embrace Foreverism

This is an idea that encompasses the many ways in which people and businesses are embracing conversations, relationships and products that are never done[5]. Driven by technology we are forever present, forever findable and forever conversing. The popularity of social networking sites, the vast information storage capacity of the internet and dawn of a new mobile age means brands are exposed as never before.

There are successful examples of brands finally joining the conversation. The Coca Cola Facebook fanpage[6] and the Innocent blog[7] are well used and have been great for PR. Twitter is another channel where a constant dialogue is being created, helping foster a more balanced relationship between brands and people where honesty, cooperation and transparency thrive. See wholefoods[8] and starbucks[9] for some good examples.

Once you have accepted your brand must be constantly open to the now, the past and future will take care of themselves

Foreverism conversely creates more change in the world not less. It is a product of profound movements to our society that have been made possible by the internet but created by people. Accepting Brand Impermanence will allow us to navigate this future in a dynamic and unrestricted way.

3) Be Modular

Brands should always be customer made. They should never be designed to completion. The brand experience is never fixed so the physical product or service should not be either. Component parts should be chosen, shared and personalised. Fewer products will need replacing; more sustainability, reduced environmental damage and a grateful and loyal following can be achieved.

Modularity could and does exist in the form of hardware that endures while software is improved and updated. Think iphone or ipad models as their hardware is constantly updated with the latest software; easily transferable and immeasurably improving the product. Brands like Sony or Samsung creating TVs that allow for ad on features and image enhancements such as 3D[10]. These principles are being used to personalise trainer design[11] or streetwear[12] and also in furniture or jewellery design.

This thinking can be applied to brands themselves. There might be an over arching brand proposition. For example Nike “Just do it”. However under that could lie several more relevant brand positions. For streetware , for competitive racing, for football. People who buy into Nike can take as much or as little as they like. This approach, akin to “lighting brand fires”[13] allows for a malleable brand development.

The more involved customers can be with a brand the better, but there must also be a balance between delivering basic product functions and meeting needs. To be Modular is to accept that both products and people are always changing and it gives us a template to provide a richer more meaningful brand experiences.

4) Behave Transiently

This is the understanding that people are driven by experiences of the here and now instead of the fixed and permanent nature of our consumerist past.

Fixed brands run the risk of becoming tired, out of date, hard to maintain and time consuming. We are all now transumers in a constant state of change. Always on the move, always searching, whimsically bowing to the latest fashions and trends. After all, in the experience economy of brands, the temporary and the transient are increasingly becoming worshipped.

We must look to offer multiple experiences and access to the brand. Maybe through a “leasing lifestyle” of transport or communal ownership of brands[14]. Some brands are already behaving transiently with great success, the likes of Inditex[15] (owner of H&M and Zara) have organised themselves to provide super quick production of the latest fashions and therefore always appear “in touch” with their audience.

People want to be surprised and brands will start to appear in places where people want to see them. How about your favourite coffee brand opening a site in your work reception? These so called “being spaces” will increasingly become important while we are in transition. The fleeting moments in airport waiting lounges, train platforms or cinema foyers are opportunities for brands to meet the immediate needs of their audiences and become stronger and more relevant “just in time” brands[16].

This notion of behaving Transiently provides some very exciting opportunities in our new understanding of Brand Impermanence. It creates more relevant touchpoints and will help bring brands and people closer together.

Google – A vision of impermanence

We know what permanent brands look like. They are all around us and are tied to their consumerist past. A glance at interbrand’s top global brands[17] over the last 20 years is all you need. Although some attempts to adapt brand behaviour are occurring, the best way to visualize Brand Impermanence is to use an example of a brand that has always been guided by it and will lead the way in the future.

Google embodies impermanence. Take this recent quote from their UK CEO Matt Brittin regarding the launch of Google Buzz,

“In retrospect we could have done Buzz better, but we want to be there innovating at pace, the price you pay is adapting fast. There were things we could do to make Buzz significantly better and we did in a matter of days”[18].

“We don’t have a plan” CEO, Eric Schmidt proudly boasts. Instead there is a broad and deliberately ambiguous mission of organising the world’s information (or doing no evil). “If doesn’t bother us if something doesn’t work because we understand something else will work”[19].

Believe him or not but this is the mantra of Brand Impermanence. Google reflects this through actions as well as words. By constantly amending their homepage logo, through the vast wealth of new beta products in Google labs, by their commitment to open source technology for their browser Chrome and by adapting search functionality in real time. Figure 4 is a representation of this.

Figure 4

Of course, dig deeper and there a numerous contradictions; their various litigation and court proceedings against competitors, the top down approach to recruitment and secrecy surround their page rank algorithms for example.

However, Google show what is possible for brands in the age of uncertainty and they seem to be doing a pretty good job, for now…..

About the author

GregFuller is a comms planner working for Starcom MediaVest, a global media agency (although the concept of a pure media agency is long gone). I’ve worked in communications planning for 8 years across a range of clients including the likes of American Express, COI, Royal Mail, Associated Newspapers and most importantly Jobsite! Having recently completed the IPA excellence diploma here are some thoughts/ideas on the future of brand communications.

Footnotes

[1] Source: www.informl.com/2008/01/18/beta-today-beta-tomorrow-beta-forevah. An article on beta branding and a new approach for brands and products

[2] Source: www.biggu.com/apps/shopsavvy

[3] Source: Neilsen Global online consumer survey

[4] Source: www.victorsandspoils.com

[5] Source: www.trendwatching.com/foreverism

[6] Source: www.facebook.com/cocacola

[7] Source: innocentdrinks.typepad.com

[8] Source:www.twitter.com/wholefoods

[9] Source: www.twitter.com/starbucks

[10] Source: www.sony.net/united/3D/

[11] Source:www.kingsofneon.com

[12] Source:www.nikeid.nike.com

[13] Earls,M. (2007) Herd

[14] Source: www.myfootballclub.com

[15] Source: www.wired.co.uk/Intindex

[16] Source: Andrew Walmsley in Marketing April 2010

[17] Clifton, W, Maughan E (2000) Interbrand he Future of Brands

[18] Wired Magazine 05.10 Poll of top 100 digital movers in the UK

[19] Wired Magazine 07.09 An interview with Eric Schmidt

Posted in Brand, Guests, Marketing.

Tagged with Beta, Brand, Brand Impermanence, Branding, Google, Greg Fuller, Marketing, Next, Zara.

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By Felix – August 25, 2010

There’s only one world

A recent article in the German news magazine “Der Spiegel” stated that German youngsters are so engaged in their real life that they have no time for virtual lives. That is very encouraging and somehow also expected, isn’t it? But there is, I believe, another underlying misconception: that there’s a divide between the physical world and virtual world in the mind of the individual. This is an artificial divide.

There’s only one world, populated with individuals that engage and communicate through different means, that organize themselves in different ways, but the world is real, real in every sense, real for every sense and real with the individual at the heart of their world. The earlier we overcome this divide, the happier we will be as individuals and the earlier we overcome this divide as businesses, the more successful we’ll be. It also results in putting the individual at the heart of it all.

This has two consequences for branding – consistency and fluency. A brand (be it personal or corporate) needs to be consistent and stable at its core and the values it stands for. Different online and offline persona are passé. Be as real as you can be, know your values, know what you stand for. And stop using fake names and fake photos as avatars.

But like every person changes, so every brand changes – all the time. Simply because the people that work for a brand are the brand and because everything communicates, every interaction and engagement interprets, transforms and changes the brand. So it’s key that we empower people to live the brand, to be the brand, but – and here we have the circularity – that’s only possible if there’s a strong core combined with a strong vision, which results into a clear framework. This will also result in consistent communication and that’s why I’m opposed to have social media as a separate entity of the company – it all hangs together.

The bigger the company becomes, the more it engages into web 2.0 and the more it becomes like a nation. Now we are talking citizens instead of employees and clients. Now we all can learn from nation builders and community organizers that have worked in these fields long before web 2.0 was first described. Dan Blank has written a fantastic article on community building and I completely agree with his premise – that communities create themselves, they are organisms.

So far we have focused mainly on the internal aspect of branding, but the brand actually lives in the mind of the client/consumer. What the brand owner finds interesting about their brand and want to communicate about, often doesn’t hit the sweet-spot of the client.

Brand building requires mental flexibility and agility. Brand building requires research, not opinion. Brand building at its most basic, needs to cover three stages: awareness, perception and reality. Brand building is about listening and then finding and communicating a solution for the frustrations of the consumer/client that differentiates against the competition and can be consistently delivered and reinforced through every single piece of interaction.

Now we are coming full circle: a brand in the individual’s mind is not divided by communication channel, by function, by online versus offline, by social media, by mobile app etc. A brand in the individual’s mind is defined by every single engagement, independent of channel but all interdependent, all together creating a perception through experience and experience through perception. The earlier we overcome this artificial divide, the happier and the more successful we as individuals and we as brand owners will be. There’s only one world – in the mind of every individual.

This is a shorter version of my guest post for TruManchester. You can find the original & many more posts from participants in this event here.

photo credit: edlimphoto

Posted in Brand, Marketing, Social Media.

Tagged with artificial divide, Brand, Marketing, Marketing Communicatin, Social Media, TruManchester.

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By Felix – August 24, 2010

Guest blog: Brand Impermanence. The search for Nirvana is over – by Greg Fuller

Brands in the age of uncertainty

Change that matters is unpredictable. Through a triplet of circumstances: rarity, extreme impact and retrospective (though not prospective) predictability our existence is jolted forward in what has been termed Black Swan logic[1]. This thinking is applicable to brands and ideas just the same as it is historical events such as 9/11 or the global financial crisis.

The most successful advertising campaign of last year was one in which an anthropomorphic Russian Meerkat bestowed the virtues of price comparison by directing strayed searchers away from his own website. In the process over 5 million people have compared Meerkats, over 700,000 Facebook fans have pledged their allegiance and there was even a 100% increase in insurance quotes through the clients’ main site[2].

Successful brand communications are full of such “surprises”. Take Volkswagen’s “Lemon”, Persil’s “Dirt is good”, Nike’s “Just do it” or Cadbury’s “Gorilla”. All made leaps in creativity that strongly resonated with audiences, they were of the moment and nobody saw them coming. Post rationalisation and retro fitting of planned marketing strategies help to assimilate these campaigns into a natural order of brand history.

Why were these campaigns so successful? Was it a planned success based on past learning or a swift forgetting of outdated information and ageing habits?

The key to the answer lies at the heart of my proposition – That in order to build more successful brands we must “react and create” rather than “strategize and plan” in a real time flow of communications.

As Fried and Heinemeier Hansson suggest;

“Writing a plan makes you feel in control of things you can’t actually control. Why don’t we just call plans what they really are: guesses.”[3]

Planning takes us further away from brands. However, it is currently the best method to systematically use information that is presented and formulate ideas to deliver rationalised brand communications.

I wish to explore an alternative and viable solution to this problem.

From “solid” to “liquid” brands

We have moved from building “solid” brands to guiding “liquid” brands. This has been dictated by societal changes that are set to become more prevalent over the coming years.

We live in a world where social forms and institutions such as the church, the state, the media and brands themselves no longer have time to solidify and serve as useful references for human action and long term life plans[4].

Instead we splice together an unending series of short term projects that give the impression of adding up to a meaningful concept such as a “career”, “progress” or a “brand”.

Previous IPA candidates have argued that under these endemic conditions of uncertainty brands play a more important role than ever. As a means to build communities by replacing religion[5] or to provide meaning though story telling[6]. Others such as Mac Cato see brands “offering certainty in an increasingly uncertain world”[7]

I will not contest that brands still have a fixed and permanent role to play in people’s lives (or at least the illusion of this). My argument is that brands and their custodians need to organise themselves in such a way that they are constantly willing and ready to embrace new ideas.

Brands must reflect their audiences by amending tactics and pursuing opportunities according to their current availability in order to build stronger and more relevant associations.

The real time data that is now available to brand custodians makes this approach achievable. We have the ability to monitor, interact, create and implement faster then ever before.

In liquid times, calculating the likely gains and losses for our brands in an unending series of real time decisions will be vital.

In this understanding of brands it makes what you don’t know far more relevant than what you do know.

This is fundamental to the concept of Brand Impermanence.

The importance of being impermanent

Impermanence

–adjective

Not permanent, or enduring, transitory

Nothing remains the same for two consecutive moments. Heraclitus said we can never bathe twice in the same river. Confucius, while looking at a stream, said, “It is always flowing, day and night.” The Buddha implored people not just to talk about impermanence, but to use it as an instrument to help us penetrate deeply into reality and obtain liberating insight[8].

Everything we can experience through our senses is made up of parts, and its existence is dependent on external conditions[9]. Everything is in constant flux, and so conditions and the thing itself is constantly changing. Things are always coming into being, and ceasing to be. Nothing lasts[10].

Let’s consider this philosophy for the understanding of brands.

A brand does not remain the same during its entire lifetime. It changes every moment. Understood this way, a brand is a representation of the context in time in which it exists. Even from a scientific point of view this is true. The atoms and molecules in a product, service or piece of communication are always changing. Psychologically in the minds of consumers no two people “hold precisely the same view of the same brand”[11] at any given moment.

So if brands are always changing, why do they appear so permanent?

They are formed from a successive series of different moments, joining together to give the impression of one continuous flow. They move from cause to cause, effect to effect, one state of existence to another, giving an outward impression they are an evolution of their past, whereas in reality they are not. The brand of yesterday is not the same as the brand of today.

This may seem a little too philosophical, and is of course an extreme representation to explain a concept. In reality the structure of a brand is both transitory and fixed. Figure 1 below is a representation of the Brand Impermanence scale.

Figure 1

Visualised in this way, the numerous components that make up a brand lie around a permanent core – namely the brand name and logo. The further away from the core the more pronounced the agents of change become. These orbital outliers have always played a decisive role in how brands are built.

Consider the history of the Coca-Cola brand in the representation of figure 2.

Figure 2

Quite clearly, the brand name has remained and the logo has changed very little. The brand became a global phenomena on the back of clear communications although these values/identity and personality have changed with the times. The product itself has adapted, although to near fatal consequences with New Coke. All the while advertising and Coca-Cola drinkers respond to the latest trends and societal changes.

However, acknowledging levels of Brand Impermanence doesn’t tell the whole story. There is a deeper fallacy at the heart of today’s brand communication.

The brand Nirvana illusion

Nirvana

–Noun

a place or state characterized by freedom from or oblivion to pain, worry, and the external world.

Even in the stark reality of change there is a gravitational pull of our industry’s focus back to brand permanence. A mythical haven of brand fulfilment, of global fame, where 3 year strategies rule and change is the enemy.

This is the Brand Nirvana Illusion.

Successful brands have a certain immortality[12]. There is a complete focus on the destination at the expense of the journey. The notion of strategy as the key to potent marketing and planning has become well accepted and now passes without question[13]. The big idea and grand plan provide comfort in a blueprint for success. Figure 3 shows the contrast between the two approaches.

Figure 3

However, uncertainty does not have to mean fear. We dream of a brand utopia detached from the realities of day to day life. It is no coincidence that the term “utopia” was first penned by Sir Thomas More as the apparently timeless routines fell around him in the 16th century[14]. He looked for a world free from unpredictable threats, experimentation and improvisation.

Marketers of today face similar fates. We are living in the age of the organized consumer. The seller centric narcissism represented by me – the seller – promoting my attributes in the best possible way to you – the “consumer” has been challenged by the information age[15]. Indeed markets can be seen as conversations[16] where the flow of ideas, information and trade now occurs at such a pace and with such freedom that a new way of thinking is vital.

Brands remain but our approach to them must change. How can we create more effective brand communications in real time?

Without impermanence, nothing would be possible. With impermanence, every door is open for change. Impermanence is therefore an instrument for brand liberation.

Next we’ll consider this understanding in relation to how it affects 3 separate areas of communications: Brands, agencies and clients.