This week’s top 5 stories include Android’s quality control and In-app billing, Sony’s gaming woes, updates at Twitter – interests, Advanced Search, Google’s Page, Page Speed Online, Nortel patents, Microsoft’s ant-trust plans and Facebook’s journalist page..
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Though the Old Spice man campaign (earlier post) was famed for its creativity, the other important part about it was the near real-time operations involved. More recently, I read about Kraft’s plans to turn 5 chosen tweets into TV ads for its Macaroni & Cheese product. Even more interesting was Coke getting Maroon5 to compose a song in 24 hours, with “inspiration and collaboration from fans” on Twitter. They performed it on March 23rd and Coke released it for free on April 1st. On reaching 100000 downloads, they will also make a donation to an organisation working on providing clean water in Africa. (via, there is another example too, from the fashion industry)
Real time can be cool, and then I read this article on ‘Accelerated Cool‘, an interesting take on how to keep up in a scenario where a trend is replaced almost as soon as you hear of it. Their answer – “be yourself”, because then “You are owning your identity and embracing the rawness of pure, unfiltered, self”.
Is this an option for brands? An interesting perspective I thought of was a personal brand – no, not Bieber or Rebecca Black, thank you but (predictably) Lady Gaga. Lady Gaga, who wowed folks at Google and Twitter recently, interviewed by Ev and Marissa Mayer respectively, and answered a viewer question on “Stefani” (her real name) with “This is me. Gaga is just a nickname.” Her song “Born This Way”, viewed a record (until Black’s Friday happened) 24 million times on YouTube, is incidentally about identity. (via)
But a Lady Gaga cannot scale beyond a person. So, with existing platforms in a constant state of flux, and new ones appearing with a unique set of rules regularly, the answer for a brand is not simple, especially when consumers have the tools to amplify the brand’s #win and #fail and the economics of attention do not usually allow second chances. There is always a choice – to take an example of logos, revert to the old logo like Gap, or stick to their guns, like Syfy. (via)
I’d say that brands have to find their purpose, from it would evolve the identity, and its manifestation across contexts and platforms then needs to be planned, governed by what LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman would call ‘flexible persistence’. “The art is knowing when to be persistent and when to be flexible and how to blend them.” (via) The science would come from the tons of data – real time and otherwise (earlier post) that is being generated and will continue to grow in volume. The trick, as usual, is in balancing the identity and the context, and if that is done, the brand can play with real time as easily as Neo does with the Matrix. Damn, that example is a dozen years old!
until next time, identity kits
Enabling the youth to look at society and their role in it from a different perspective, through a road trip, that’s the unique initiative called Grassroutes. In conversation with one of the founders Keerthi Kiran..
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This week’s updates include Google + 1, Groupon and Living Social, Jack Dorsey’s return to Twitter, Hotmail’s new interactive mail and Facebook Questions.
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There was this forward that did the rounds about 8 years back, about how businesses are run. It involved 8 monkeys, bananas and a ladder. I’m going to repeat it here for the benefit of those not familiar with it. Those who know it already, skip and read the rest please.
Put eight monkeys in a room. In the middle of the room is a ladder, leading to a bunch of bananas hanging from a hook on the ceiling. Each time a monkey tries to climb the ladder, all the monkeys are sprayed with ice water, which makes them miserable. Sooner enough, whenever a monkey attempts to climb the ladder, all of the other monkeys, not wanting to be sprayed, set upon him and beat him up. Soon, none of the eight monkeys ever attempts to climb the ladder.
One of the original monkeys is then removed, and a new monkey is put in the room. Seeing the bananas and the ladder, he wonders why none of the other monkeys are doing the obvious, but, undaunted, he immediately begins to climb the ladder. All the other monkeys fall upon him and beat him silly. He has no idea why. However, he no longer attempts to climb the ladder.
A second original monkey is removed and replaced. The newcomer again attempts to climb the ladder, but all the other monkeys hammer the crap out of him. This includes the previous new monkey, who, grateful that he’s not on the receiving end this time, participates in the beating because all the other monkeys are doing it. However, he has no idea why he’s attacking the new monkey.
One by one, all the original monkeys are replaced. Eight new monkeys are now in the room. None of them have ever been sprayed by ice water. None of them attempt to climb the ladder. All of them will enthusiastically beat up any new monkey who tries, without having any idea why. And that’s how any company’s policies get established.
What reminded me of this? Tom Fishburne’s recent post on ‘low interest’ categories, in which he talks about how “marketers often limit ourselves by the conventional rules of a particular category”. The induction and experiences thereafter changes us from, to use Seth Godin’s words, insurgents to incumbents.
In these times of “hit the ground running”, is it too much to ask of companies to allow new hires to just give their perspectives on the brand and organisational processes in the first month? I too believe that for the brand team, these perspectives are a great representation of the end consumer. With all the money spent on data mining and consumer research, this ‘free’ sample is given a pass, perhaps because, just like the industries itself, even businesses internally fear disruption.
Over a period of time, the brand’s custodians tend to lose their objectivity and processes unfortunately have a way of becoming the ends rather than the means. And that’s where ‘culture’ can make a difference. Know any companies who foster this?
until next time, this is the way things are undone 🙂
