I have been trying to work out a model or process which can help a brand or organisation become more socialised. This has taken me back to an idea which I have been thinking about for a long time - the importance and centrality of stories in creating the brands of the future.
In becoming socialised, brands are going to have to shape their communication along more conversational and expansive lines and will need a platform to base this on that is richer, deeper and more credible that a simple brand or advertising proposition. What they need is a story which encapsulates where the brands comes from, what it does and delivers and what authority it has to be trusted. I am not yet quite sure what form these stories will take, where they will live and who will look after them - but they will be used as part-creative brief and part-gospel when it comes to designing brand activity. Defining and nurturing these stories may possibly become the central task of all brand guardians in the future.
The executional challenge for brands will be to build a portfolio of content (or creative) assets and participation mechanics around these stories. The new media space presents the environment in which to do this - but some of these things (like a conventional 30 second TV ad) will continue to live in traditional one-way broadcast media for the time being.
Content assets could be described as the things a brand needs to produce to fuel a conversation about the brand. They are probably going to have a longer and more evolutionary life than much of the creative that brands currently produce.
Participation mechanics can be seen as the infrastructure a brand needs create to engage consumers and I imagine these as experiences that will compete for space in consumers' personal digital theme parks.
Sitting between content, participation and the brand story may be a thing called an activation idea which is perhaps ab evolution of what used to be called the creative idea. Unlike other elements this could be quite short-lived and correspond to what are currently seen as brand campaigns. The key is recognising that that this element is probably the least important and may not need to exist at all - whereas under the old model this element was the principal driver of activity.
This is what the model looks like.
Yet here is the rub: your anonymity will be the biggest hindrance as a potential influencer, because it prevents you from telling the most personal stories.
Story -- unlike analogy, allegory, or parable -- requires characters. Either internal (protaganist) or external (the storyteller).
You will find over time that more of you will need to bleed onto this blog for your theses to resonate. The blogosphere won't allow a perfectly academic treatment, because it's all about social connections.
Posted by: Ike | June 03, 2006 at 08:27 AM