Category: Advertising

  • Brands – real and virtual frontiers

    A few months back, I had written about the Balkanisation of the internet, in which I had asked how a  brand could deal with the surge of not just new services, but new platforms too. A few days back, I thought of this from a (slightly oblique) user point of view and remembered incidents spread across years – a few years back, one morning, when I was thankful on seeing a CCD in Colva, Goa while I was hunting for breakfast options because I knew exactly what to expect in a CCD menu; last year, when I visited a mall in Cochin, and realised that I could more or less predict the brands that would be present there; on television, the increasing popularity of US TV shows and how channels seem to be working to sync a global audience in terms of seasons; (forget torrents for now) and how, a meme on Twitter or Facebook is many a time global in appeal and interesting apps on iPhone/Android platforms are discussion points across geographies and in general, an increasingly growing population is 'in touch' and having similar sensibilities.

    The themes here from the real world experiences to virtual ones are homogeneity, and of a user's preference (in many cases) for familiarity. Which makes me turn back the question on balkanisation

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    . Despite the balkanisation, do new platforms accelerate a homogeneity within a certain demographic?  The rate of upward mobility notwithstanding, do you think, at some point, popular culture and preferences will become homogenous globally? eg. say Angry Birds, Dexter, Bieber hatred…

    Meanwhile, since the time I switched to Android – a few months ago, I have noticed that services like Facebook, Twitter, 4sq and the Google range, are working hard to ensure that users can move seamlessly across different platforms – web, mobile web, apps, tablets. While that doesn't absolve the brands from having to understand the workings of different platforms, consumption patterns and how they could provide the user an interesting experience in these contexts, it does provide some relief.

    Few brands have been known to get regional nuances right in communication. Now, along with location and location based marketing becoming center-stage, there is an added challenge. Not only do they have to get the nuances right in their communication, but they also have to provide consistency in the value offering (not the same as being static) in experiences across platforms. That is a long stretch from blasting messages across traditional media platforms.

    until next time, brand-owned platforms?

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  • Plead Blue

    <context> I missed the Twitter debate, but it was still interesting to see the two perspectives shared by Karthik and L.Bhat on Nike’s ‘Bleed Blue’ campaign. Bhat’s initial post was a good summing up of the campaign, and what made it work. Karthik’s contention was that Nike did not deserve credit primarily because it was “tightly associated with the team’s performance” – an external occurrence. There were other reasons too, but I gathered that this was the crux of it. The contrasting example was Pepsi’s Hoo Haa – Blue Billion effort during the 2006 Champions Trophy. In a second post, Bhat also acknowledged a correlation (between the campaign’s and India’s success) and rightly (IMO) stated that the campaign’s intent centred around ‘garnering support for Team India….’ and ‘portraying a positive, confident attitude about Team India…’ Also, as he points out, it stayed away from any ‘player superhero’ association or a ‘we will win the cup’ stance. </context>

    This debate was also interesting from the perspective of what I wrote last week – brand identity and real time. But before we get there, my 2 cents on the debate. I would also credit Nike for the same reasons Bhat stated – strategy, product integration and ease of participation (execution). That is what separates it from say a ‘Pallu scoop’, which is fun and pure recall, or a ‘Get Idea’, which still hasn’t given me an idea of how it’s keeping cricket clean.  [yes, they aren’t apples, but they were the other hugely visible campaigns]

    Big ticket result-based events (including movies, which Karthik has mentioned) is a risk-reward game because there really isn’t any data that allows you to place sure-shot bets. But the way I see it, you can place a successful bet, and still not gain enough mileage (bad erm, ideas, bad execution etc). Nike got it right, and there was some hard work involved.

    Come to think of it, I wonder if there’s any other approach Nike could’ve taken, especially since they were the official apparel sponsors. Look at the competition – Adidas had a Tendulkar ad and Reebok had nothing. It was a ‘once in 4 years’ opportunity and they seized it. India winning the cup was a key factor in the campaign’s success, but not the only one. Also, I don’t know if they had a back up plan – a “we’ll be back in 2015”, “thank you for giving it your best shot”, “bled to death”. Ok, not the last one, but you get the idea. Maybe they did and would’ve come out smelling like roses anyway. In any case, the efficacy of the campaign is probably best decided after it ends. In this case, it made Nike the buzz brand with other heavyweights in the fray, including the mighty Zoozoos. (Loved them though)

    Meanwhile, by design or not, Nike’s approach was also quite a “Just Do it” one. (hindsight/retrofit) From the last post’s perspective, I wonder how much/whether that identity played a part in the design and success of the campaign. But on big events, celebrity endorsements etc, going forward, real time management of campaigns will increasingly become a requirement, thanks to the instant feedback tools that exist. Perhaps brands should formulate ‘what if scenarios’ and corresponding approaches when they plan large scale campaigns, especially when it’s linked to events that don’t offer much support in the form of data. The other way is to scale after the relevant data comes in, but that would involve quite an execution effort.

    until next time, blue positive 🙂

    PS: Nike, next time, stadium checkins and a Bleed Blue 4sq badge too please 🙂

  • Lady Gaga, Identity and Flexible Persistence

    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

  • New media indeed

    When I wrote this in last week’s post – “‘social’ as it relates to friends and followers’ overrules ‘social’ as a relationship between brand and consumer”, in the context of how brands use social media, I also became  more conscious that despite me relating to Facebook and Twitter as a means to connect with friends, the platforms themselves were clearly seen as a media by the world at large. Even LinkedIn now apparently has a news aggregator.

    It is true that I consume large amounts of content via (or on) Facebook and Twitter, but I have always seen it as content shared by friends, not as media like a newspapers or TV channels. It is probably because I have always associated media with information and entertainment and never social. But that’s only a personalised view, I realise. The larger picture shows a content delivery platform – media. I guess when social scaled it didn’t know what else to do but become media. Interesting how the new media platforms worked from social connection towards utility and the old media are trying to make the journey from info and entertainment to social.

    And thus when I saw a few recent Facebook developments, I viewed it through the prism of FB as media. Facebook launched Sponsored Stories a while back, using friends’ actions as an ‘advertisement’. It updated Pages giving functionalities that helped brands interact more. Now it has completely knocked off the ‘Share’ button and replaced it with an omnipotent ‘Like’ button that will transmit a story blurb complete with thumbnail instead of the earlier single line in ‘Recent Activity’. (details) Publishers won’t complain since content will be more visible now. Facebook’s comment box plugin also got revamped with better moderation, social algorithms to surface the comments that will be most interesting to you (indicated by social signals from friends) and better distribution – now, when a user utilises the “Post to Facebook” button on a site with FB comments enabled, it can be replied to on FB and will automatically be reflected on the original website as well. If the publisher has a Page on FB, it can respond to the comment and include the people who have ‘Liked’ the page into the conversation. (details) That’s a first from FB – allowing conversations to go out. Wonder what they’re after – interest graph, a perpetually signed-in user, sole web identity provider, all of the above? But in essence, a new media platform that connects publishers with users. And in this age, brands are after all content creators too, eh?

    I would think the progression is obvious – first build a user base with awesome features, then focus on publishers  (including brands) who will make it a distribution channel, and the next step would be to make the advertisers spend more.

    While Google is busy dealing with content farms in search results, I realise that we have very little means to stay away from the Facebook way of throwing content at us. Watch your newsfeed as Facebook uses you and the content publisher to make itself more indispensable as a platform. Like I tweeted, the hope is that in trying to be everything – mailbox, location, photo storage, for everyone, Facebook might lose itself. The effect all this will have on ‘trust’ in networks, I’ll leave for another post.

    Media has always been aggregating audiences by providing information..+entertainment..+social connections… and then leasing it to brands. (advertisers) With advances in technology, it’s perhaps time for brands to create their own direct lines to consumers, outside of the new media barons. Otherwise, in their immediate comfort state of using yet another platform as media, the way they’re accustomed to, it is possible that they will continue to be at the mercy of a third party and have to play by their rules, sometimes at the risk of antagonising the end user.

    until next time, mediators = media + dictators? 😉

  • Brand-streams

    Last week, I got a beta invite from a new lifestreaming service called Memolane and I’ve added my blogs and quite a few services I use to it. You can check it out here. I’m quite a fan of lifestreaming – as a concept. Though I have seen quite a few web based services perish, I persist. In the meantime, I maintain my own twitterstream (though I started it 2 years after I began using Twitter) and even used Sweetcron to try out a self hosted stream sometime back. These function more as activity streams than anything else and only faintly show the connections to other people.

    When I saw my stream, I was reminded of a thought from a couple of years back – a post I had titled ‘Communities and Brandstreams‘. Though I’d referred to quite a few posts then, in this context, the two significant ones are @misentropy‘s “The future of: user generated advertising” and RWW’s “Brandstreaming: What is it and who’s doing it?”. The former is about the concept of an open source product/brand wiki and the latter is about how a couple of brands used Friendfeed and other services to stream their content.

    Now that I am revisiting this, and with last week’s thought on ‘the structure that would hold the identity of a brand together’, I’m wondering if a brand-stream might be a way to approach it. So if we mash the idea of a lifestream – connecting the individual nodes of interaction [in my case, it would be the web services like Twitter/Faceb0ok/Foursquare/Flickr/YouTube etc, but for a brand, it would not just be its web services but also apps and even ‘real world’ data collection via sensors or the Internet of Things or say a variation of  barcodes/QR codes/ stickybits] with a brand wiki we could do at least a couple of things. One, if we open it out for users/consumers to share (with the brand-stream, as well as with their own community) how they interact with these nodes we could then capture and use data by time, kind of activity, user profiles, services used, ‘reach’ of individual users and so on. The entry to the stream could be across platforms. It would  make it easier for a user to not only experience the brand through a medium he’s comfortable with, but also check out ways in which others are experiencing the brand and suggest new ways for the brand to interact with others like him. Two, on the other side, users on the enterprise side could also connect to this stream basis various contexts (brand, customer service, operations, even HR) and make the business truly ‘social’. Sounds interesting? (see this for a vague visual cue 🙂 )

    until next time, streaming out loud 🙂

    PS: On Lifestreaming, on the personal blog. Check related posts for more. 🙂