Thus far, the organisation as a platform has been built to leverage scale for competitive advantage. But technology and open platforms are easily on their way to make scale matter much less. As this post  succinctly states, connections weigh more than efficiency now. So how can the organisation move towards connections?

My thought process on this was probably started in Social’s Second Chance. Social tools and platforms have brought the brand into full contact with the user and have caused paradigm shifts in not just marketing but across the organisation. This deck makes an insightful point that traditional marketing structures are dialectic in nature while social platforms are dialogic. That explains why brands are using social mostly as media and trying to frack it, despite there being better ways to approach it, even in the context of marketing. Experience > exposure is a lesson yet to be learnt.

Among other reasons, one of the big factors that are contributing to a resistance in truly embracing social in entirety is a fear – loss of control. This is a great read on designing for the loss of control and my biggest takeout from it is where it quotes from ‘The Power of Pull‘ – “shaping strategies” on the individual, institutional, and societal level.

I think there’s tremendous scope in rethinking the brand/organisation as a platform. In the bid for competitive advantage through scale and efficiency @ scale, it is possible that the organisation/brand has chosen to see value very myopically – as a transaction. What if the organisation transformed itself around connections – connecting employees to a sense of purpose, partners to the kind of work they’d want to associate with and its own narratives with that of the consumer’s? Of course there’d be transactions involved too, but how about engaging each in a way that understands and works with the unique value in every interaction within the context of a shared purpose?

(Arguable) I think efficiency lays more stress on methods, but engagement has the potential to focus on principles. Profitability at any cost vs value creation as a means to profitability. The choice might actually make the difference between survival and irrelevance.

Brand planning has always been an interest area, and I’ve had the good fortune of knowing a few brilliant planners, and learning what I could from them. Still continue to. A simple search would throw up a number of planning frameworks, and many of the fundamentals would still hold.  However, technology is throwing open more options in terms of manifestation/output. I found some good perspectives in this article which is about that CMOs can learn from technologists. The fundamental theme is dynamism. But such are the challenges that they remind me of We are trapped in our inadequate mental models ~ John Edwarrd Huth (via)

I’d think that brand narratives are (also) shaped by the story telling devices at their disposal. As Mitch Joel points out here, the nuances of marketing vs advertising need to be understood as brands struggle to transition from the mass advertising era. One-way media allowed a linear flow, but current platforms demand flexibility, and customised rendition across contexts and platforms. If consumers are the new media, the stories should be ones that they can identify with, fit into their personal narratives, and therefore inclined to share.

Many of the familiar narrative devices have focused on getting attention, but that is increasingly difficult. It’s not that ‘awareness’ can be ignored, but not only is it not enough, but attention for the sake of itself cannot work. I really liked this post (again by Paul Isakson) where he encapsulates the thought in the title itself Adding Value > Getting Attention. The > works not just as ‘greater than’ but also as ‘leads to’. Or, in other words, Be the Company Customers can’t Live Without.

In a highly fragmented media and consumption scenario, how does a brand/business know what to focus on and when to shift from it?A wonderful blog I have discovered recently is that of Paul Isakson. This post, for instance, throws light on the need for the brand to stay true to its own story, and therefore focus on specific audiences. Another of my favourite posts focuses on something that I have always believed in and liked – the back story, and its relevance for brands. What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow ~ Buddha

To get there involves a cultural change, and tectonic shifts. I also think that this will force brands to think about scale. In a mass media world, a brand could get ‘reach’ by throwing money. That can still be done, even on social platforms, but when attention is not the only thing that matters, the challenge is to build relevancy and scale it – across time. That requires new planning frameworks, and possibly means a

(via)

We started with FB, so let’s go full circle. Even as late as last year, there was massive skepticism around Facebook’s ability to adapt and thrive in the mobile space. In the last earnings call, they reported that mobile had contributed 41% to revenue. (read) It would seem that Facebook knew its story, what to focus on,  and stuck to it.

until next time, refresh

I thought about it a bit, not in the context of brands or businesses, but more in terms of brand communication as a field, advertising specifically, and brands’ usage of the social web. Consumption patterns, media platforms available etc had pretty much created templates for creative agencies over a period of time. But the arrival of the web, social platforms and the democratization of media have managed to disrupt the ways of the one-way communication age. This post is a good one to read in that context, and talks about the change digital has made to campaigns, and the ‘role of the consumer’. But desperation, hype and the eagerness to get on board makes everyone concerned ‘jump the shark’. And unfortunately, the way I’ve seen many agencies and clients execute it (purely as a consumer), I’m quite inclined to agree with the author of this hilarious letter. (via PSFK)

(click to enlarge)

The job of the brand manager/creative agency is obviously a more difficult one now, and is made even more so thanks to the approach – of tool strategy. Like this (old but) excellent post states, ‘the technology that underpins social media is changing fast’, but its ephemerality ‘is a feature, not a bug’. It made me wonder whether brand communication/advertising, as a process (the way we see it now) had ‘jumped the shark’, mostly because the thinking process still sees  social platforms in the same light as traditional media and has not changed to be in tune with the former’s dynamics. In other words mistaking social media marketing for social media.

Maybe they have to dig deeper, figure out the value that people are willing to pay for, and then find their ‘purpose idea + social object‘, and consistently. But that would mean a sea change in the way brands and creative agencies operate. Is adaption possible, or is complete disruption inevitable?

I juxtaposed this thought with something that Seth Godin wrote recently, about the ‘red zone‘ – the joyless part of the learning curve. His graph also has a green dot, which represents ‘someone on the other side.. rooting us on, or telling us stories of how great it is on the other side’. Perhaps if brands can find from the existing consumer crowd a few who believe enough to play the ‘green dots’, they can adopt a more holistic approach to social platforms and carry the loyalists without it seeming like ‘jumping the shark’?

until next time, safe jumping.

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