♔ 'Brand as Badge' – The Scion Art Case Study

Increasingly consumers are defining themselves by what and whom they associate with. To wit, what your brand represents is an integral part of peoples identity by association.  This brand ‘shorthand’ is a testament to ones beliefs and values. It’s a badge and by definition, is a characteristic mark, device (or token) especially of membership in a society or group.  It's also an imperative element to creating an aspirational identity that’s relevant to the consumer (and coincidentally the key in getting people to want to be associated with your brand.)

This is precisely why many savvy brands are focusing on social good today.  A brand’s 'badge' is largely based on the identity and imagery that consumers freely and naturally associate with it.  It serves as a means of social identity to represent one’s place in the world. Consumers adopt your brand today as a badge because of a shared mission or purpose - something that by proxy makes them both look and feel good about themselves.

As we’ve stated in previous posts, what’s also become clear today is that this ‘connected collective’ build modern brands.  Tribes of like-minded people aligned by something other then (and bigger then) the brand itself.  A unifying, overarching idea or movement facilitated by the brand.  From billionaires to bands and from consumers to brands, people and organisations are reordering their priorities and causing global change across a range of interconnected spaces from honesty and fair employment practices to communal, social and environmental responsibility and simply being nice. The marketing community, from individual advertising figures to new agencies and business structures, is helping drive this ethical movement.

Whether BMW’s ‘Activate the Future’ Initiative (building community around the future of mobility), Pepsi’s Refresh Project (giving away millions each month to fund refreshing ideas that change the world), MINI’s Space initiative  (building community around creative use of space), or other great examples – what’s become clear is that the connected collective is driving an ethical, moral and responsible advertising revolution. Brands are reordering their priorities and causing global change across a range of interconnected spaces - from honesty and fair employment practices to communal, social and environmental responsibility.  Other brand examples include GE's Ecomagination, Tom's Shoes' 'Buy-one, give-one' model, and Benetton's Africa Works microfinance scheme.  Admittedly, some are more altruistic than others but all examples of the brand as incubator, steward and shepherd. 

SCION ART

Scion Art champions and supports independent artistic expression with a permanent gallery in Los Angeles, an annual art tour across the U.S., monthly gallery sponsorships, custom artist created cars, and other activities that reinforce the brands core values and defines it’s constituents.

The Scion Collection Art Tour extends the brand via facilitated events across the U.S. to meet their constituents via art, music, fashion and culture. Artists featured included graffiti artists, mural artists, painters, and sculpture artists. To further amplify Scion added professional action sports athletes to the mix.  Scion stepped up and championed underground culture and this community (coincidentally Scion’s target demographic) was given a badge.  Scion garnered real street-cred by supporting those who had real street cred. Other examples of this are Red Bull’s King of the Ring and their own history in street art.  All messaging and media aligned with the brand’s unique consumer “role” and naturally this movement was supported online via website, Scion.com, Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo, YouTube, Tumblr, Flickr and MySpace. 

The bottom line is that to succeed today you need to translate your brand attributes into nothing less then a social movement. Find your constituents and given them a badge via inspiration, distruption and value. Find a shared mission or purpose that stem from the essence of an idea that people feel passionate about.  Something shared, credible, valuable and contagious that resonates with your target consumers (and by proxy ensures an emotional link and organic connection with your brand.)  Kudos to Scion - for making ‘less about the moment and more about the movement’.  Extending one powerful unifying, overarching idea (facilitated by the brand) that seeks to aggregate and align like-minded people by extending something other then (and bigger then) the brand itself. Very impressive indeed.

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♔ BRANDS AS SOCIAL MOVEMENTS - THE MINI SPACE STORY

Traditional institutions are breaking down around us on a daily basis and therefore it’s natural for us to feel impotent and uncertain in these times - as self-trust is undermined.  With so much change and uncertainty around us today, people are increasingly defining themselves by what and whom they associate with.  That’s not always a bad thing. 

A mental alignment with others who share similar beliefs can offer a sense of community, make us feel connected, open boundaries and bring new energy and newness into our lives.  It can be democratizing.  Psychologically, this sense of community is also one of the major tenants of self-definition, as being part of a group gives meaning, emotional safety, and identification. The influence is also bi-directional and reinforcing.  Fueled by increasingly powerful technology, we are increasingly realizing the power and wisdom of the connected collective.  This is our modern paradigm.

What’s also become clear today is that this ‘connected collective’ build modern brands.  Tribes of like-minded people aligned by something other then (and bigger then) the brand itself.  A unifying, overarching idea or movement facilitated by the brand.  Indeed this is the era of the brand as incubator, steward and shepherd. 

The bottom line is that to succeed today you need to translate your brand attributes into nothing less then a social movement.  An informal grouping of individuals focused on a specific political or social issue, in other words, on carrying out, resisting or undoing a social change.  It’s much, much bigger then your brand. It’s a shared mission or purpose and has to stem from the essence of an idea that people feel passionate about.  Something shared, credible, valuable and contagious that resonates with consumers and by proxy ensures an emotional link and organic connection with your brand. Therefore, you can see it’s far more about what your brand extends the tribe (and how it validates and elevates its members) by association. It’s the most important reason your brand matters to consumers.  To further demonstrate this point, we’d suggest watching Simon Sinek's and Seth Godin’s inspiring TED Talks. 

The MINI Space Story

BMW’s Mini brand clearly understands this. They created MINI Space; an “urban initiative born of a dream to provide the online creative community with an inspiring framework for making "Creative Use of Space," in the original spirit of MINI design.”  The MINI Space mission is to “dedicate ourselves to the motto "Creative Use of Space" and provide a hub for connecting creative people, events and competitions.”  Twitter and Facebook further extend a “hub for connecting.”

Whether New Testament, Torah, or Koran, all major religions are movements built upon a heft of history and stories.  MINI Space is no different, explaining to its tribe that, “way back in 1959, the MINI was designed to make maximum use of minimum space. Not only was it a highly functional, exciting, new kind of car, its compact form also addressed urgent contemporary issues like declining energy resources: the original and ultimate creative use of space. As creative people living in an urban landscape, we are constantly thinking of new ways to explore or re-imagine the spaces around us in more functional, beautiful, and accessible ways."

To MINI, that means creating a forum for meeting people who share a passion for creativity; fostering unique competitions like the MINI Space Product Design Competition in Association with Fatboy; keeping up with events like the annual Life Ball AIDS benefit; getting updates about new creative initiatives and trends worldwide on their blog; and even more. As part of this commitment to creativity and innovation, MINI Space puts a high priority on staying on top of trends, and growing and changing with the times.

Kudos to MINI, as they’ve not created yet another fleeting brand moment. They’ve created a movement. All around the:

One powerful unifying, overarching idea (facilitated by the brand) that seeks to aggregate and align like-minded people by extending something other then (and bigger then) the brand itself.  Very impressive indeed. Check it out the website, Facebook, and Twitter. 

ATTENTION BRANDS: TWITTER USERS AREN'T TALKING TO YOU OR ABOUT YOU. IN FACT, THEY BARELY KNOW YOU EXIST.

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Attention brands: Twitter users aren't talking to you or about you. In fact, they barely know you exist. That's one of the conclusions of a six-month analysis of the service's ubiquitous 140-character messages conducted by digital agency 360i and released today.

Despite marketers' embrace of the medium, brands are finding themselves on the outside of the conversation. Of the 90% of Twitter messages sent by real people -- the other 10% come from businesses -- only 12% ever mention a brand, and most of those mentions are of Twitter itself.

Further, only 1% of consumer tweets that mention a brand are part of an active conversation with that brand, meaning marketers are, for the most part, conducting one-way conversations -- the opposite of the way consumers often use Twitter.

The most mentioned brands on Twitter tend to be there because they are part of a constant daily conversation, not because of anything the brand is or isn't doing on Twitter. The most mentioned brands on Twitter are, in descending order, Twitter, Apple, Google, YouTube, Microsoft, Blackberry, Amazon, Facebook, Snuggie, eBay and Starbucks.

Embedded in the culture

Snuggie is the surprise brand on the list, but that appears to reflect the brand's place in the culture, not its own Twitter activity. Official Snuggie profile @OriginalSnuggie has just 591 followers and @WeezerSnuggie, an account set up to promote the once-popular Weezer video, has just 693 followers and has been dormant since November.

After spending six months going over a statistically significant sample of 1,800 tweets, 360i Senior-VP Sarah Hofstetter was struck at just how mundane and personal they were. "They're mostly doing what people mocked Twitter about in the first place, as in, what I had for lunch."

The vast majority of real people's tweets, 94%, are personal in nature. Most tweets, 85%, are original and not re-tweets of other messages. They're also very often conversational: 43% of tweets begin with an "@" sign, meaning they're directed at another user, not the sender's followers at large.

While marketers such as Dell, Comcast, Ford and Starbucks have been, at times, clever participants on Twitter, the majority of marketers use it as a mini press-release service. Only 12% of messages from marketers are directed at individual Twitter users, meaning marketers still see it as a broadcast medium rather than a conversational one.

Showing up isn't enough
"There is still a misperception that if brands show up, people will listen to them, kind of like Facebook a few years ago," Ms. Hofstetter said. "Twitter can be used as a promotional RSS feed, but that's not going to establish a relationship with anybody."

The study was conducted before Twitter took any advertising, from October 2009 through March 2010. Twitter has since rolled out a series of ad units including promoted tweets and trends. Ms. Hofstetter said the ads are great to help boost things already popular on Twitter. "They are only going to work if they are relevant in the first place," she said.

Twitter posts are intrinsically navel-gazing, conversational and personal, but they aren't predominantly self-promotional. Depending on your circle of connections, it can certainly feel, as Wired's Evan Ratliff noted, that "self-aggrandizement" is "standard fare" on Twitter. But the 360i study found only 2% of tweets were professional updates or career-related.

What do Twitter users talk about? Beyond the 43% of individuals' tweets that are conversational, 24% are status updates, 12% are links to news or comment on current events, and 3% are seeking or giving advice.  The good news for brands is that when a consumer does mention them on Twitter, they're usually not complaining about it. Only 7% of tweets mentioning brands indicated negative sentiment, 11% positive and an overwhelmingly 82% neutral.

Is your company or brand using Twitter and finding different results?  Let us know.

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Goodbuzz creates social media campaigns that entice consumers to play, create, and share brand experiences. We focus on developing "branded utility" - moving away from interruptive 'push' models towards more meaningful ways of connecting.  From simple metrics to actionable insights that enable data-driven marketing decisions - Goodbuzz links social media efforts to business outcomes.  Visit Goodbuzz Inc.

The Challenge of Building a Dynamic “Butcher” Brand Online - Social Media

Victor Churchill, a European-inspired designer shop of carnivorous inspiration (Butcher) in Sydney developed a website and released an iPhone app, appropriately named “Ask the Butcher”.  The “Ask the Butcher App” (created by Australia’s  Blind Mice Studios) extends users a connoisseurs guide to buying and cooking meat. 

“Ask the Butcher” answers all your questions about the perfect cut of meat, how to cook it, and what recipes to use it in.  The app even has a built in timer which reminds when to turn the meat - all in an attempt to keep premium meat, well, premium. 

What we find most refreshing about this brand is simply the fact that it’s only a butcher shop – but fights well above its weight class.   Whether Victor Churchill does in fact reap direct and measurable return on investment (ROI) from the iPhone app becomes secondary to the buzz created around their messaging and positioning.  The forward positioning becomes the differentiator and Victor Churchill is seen as a market leader.   Moreover, the PR and media buzz created more than offsets the cost of development.

Victor Churchill radically differentiated themselves as a brand and stand out in the market as a result.  In their quest for innovation they continually reinforce and amplify the core values behind their brand. It’s a reminder to all of us, no matter what we do, we need to be constantly looking for new ways to express and refresh brands.

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Goodbuzz creates social media campaigns that entice consumers to play, create, and share brand experiences. We focus on developing "branded utility" - moving away from interruptive 'push' models towards more meaningful ways of connecting.  From simple metrics to actionable insights that enable data-driven marketing decisions - Goodbuzz links social media efforts to business outcomes.  Visit Goodbuzz Inc.

The world’s first purported socially integrated e-commerce website.

Tinypay.me is the easiest way to sell virtually anything and is the world’s first socially integrated e-commerce website.  Genius Idea: If you are thinking of putting an old watch up for auction on eBay or listing your latest T-shirt design on Etsy, you may want to check out Tinypay.me first.

Tinypay.me is an e-commerce service that enables users to create quick listings for their products or services. Simply fill out the name, price and a quick description of the good or service you’d like to sell, type in a few personal details and upload a picture. You can also opt to donate the proceeds of the sale to charity, and identify your product or service’s location on a map.  You can then share your listing directly with your social networks or set up your own online store on your blog or website. The whole process can take less than a minute.

The service only asks for your name and your PayPal e-mail address; you don’t even need to set up an account or share any of your bank information. You can also sync your listing with Facebook, Twitter and Google Product Search to share your listings instantaneously.

While the service is great for selling your products and services quickly and easily, it lacks many of the benefits of e-commerce sites like eBay, Etsy and Amazon Marketplace. They are destination sites for buyers and drive most of the traffic to the listings of individual sellers via marketing and excellent search and recommendation engines. And although Tinypay.me allows visitors to leave comments on a product, it has yet to implement seller and product ratings.  In other words, if you want to succeed with Tinypay.me, you’re going to have to depend entirely on your website and social networks to advertise and sell your goods.

Find out more about the service in the video below.

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Goodbuzz creates social media campaigns that entice consumers to play, create, and share brand experiences. We focus on developing "branded utility" - moving away from interruptive 'push' models towards more meaningful ways of connecting.  From simple metrics to actionable insights that enable data-driven marketing decisions - Goodbuzz links social media efforts to business outcomes.  Visit Goodbuzz Inc.

Doritos® Viralocity | User-Generated Content (UGC) Contest

Kudos to BBDO Toronto (as this campaign is near perfect).  Like the site identifies, the "Internet is good for so many things. But let’s face it. It’s the daily joy of ridiculous wedding dance entrances, cuddly kittens, giggling babies, post-dentist dopiness, and the always-popular person falling down, that keeps us logging on again and again."


Doritos® Viralocity however, may make you super famous and super rich at the same time.  Just name the newest unidentified Doritos® flavour. Make a viral video about it. Then, use your Internet savvy to help your video go real viral, real fast. And that, my friends, is what Doritos® Viralocity is all about.    Visit the site.

AUGMENTED REALITY (AR) MEETS FACIAL RECOGNITION

Developed by The Astonishing Tribe (TAT), a Swedish mobile software and design firm, the prototype software combines computer vision, cloud computing, facial recognition, social networking, and augmented reality.

The RECOGNIZR recognizes faces with a mobile phone camera and then surrounds them with icons linking to their profiles on various sites like Facebook, Youtube and LinkedIn.  TAT built the augmented ID demo, called Recognizr, to work on a phone that has a five-megapixel camera and runs the Android operating system. 

A user opens the application and points the phone's camera at someone nearby. Software created by Swedish computer-vision firm Polar Rose then detects the subject's face and creates a unique signature by combining measurements of facial features and building a 3-D model. This signature is sent to a server where it's compared to others stored in a database. Providing the subject has opted in to the service and uploaded a photo and profile of themselves, the server then sends back that person's name along with links to her profile on several social networking sites, including Twitter or Facebook. The Polar Rose software also tracks the position of the subject's head--TAT uses this information to display the subject's name and icons for the Web links on the phone's screen without obscuring her face.

Till says that applying image and face recognition to the trend of posting photos on social networking sites opens up interesting new possibilities. "You start to move into very creative ways of pulling together lots of services in a very beneficial way for personal uses, business uses, and you start to get into things that you otherwise wouldn't be able to do," he says.

Polar Rose's algorithms can run on the iPhone and on newer Android phones, says the company's chief technical officer and founder, Jan Erik Solem. The augmented ID application uses a cloud server to do the facial recognition primarily because many subjects will be unknown to the user (so there won't be a matching photo on the phone), but also to speed up the process on devices with less processing power.

Check out the MIT overview of the technology.  Check out the video of the app in action.

LISTEN, SPEAK, ENGAGE, GIVE – THE MERITS OF SOCIAL MEDIA

If the past decade was all about the power of linking and integrating web pages and data, today it's all about power of linking and integrating people. Brands today must socialize with consumers in ways that increase their relevance and value in the eyes of their consumers. Brands must develop a credible social voice that is more engaging, personal, humble, authentic, and participatory than ever before.

Social media and networking are all the rage these days, but many people still do not understand what all the fuss is about. From the outside looking in, it would seem that online social networking is all about spending a lot of time doing nothing.  But once you understand that a social network is as much of a place or social construct, as it is an activity, all of that begins to change.   For many people, Social Networks are their home (or “hub”) online; a small piece of the web that they can call their own. Social media is really just participatory media disseminated through social interaction online.  Users gravitate towards it extends a platform that allows people to both express their individuality - and meet people with similar interests.

Social Media is about recognizing, accounting for, and tapping into the fact that, as your potential consumer makes a purchasing (or engagement) decision—they are being influenced by different circles of people through conversations with them, both online and off.  Consumer conversations about brands, products and services are increasingly woven into the interactions of social networks as a means to connect with others, and these conversations have great influence (even though people aren’t consciously asking about brand opinions.)  Moreover, consumers do not always realize how much influencing they are doing and how much they are being influenced when they have conversations about brands across social platforms. 

Most companies are seeing Social Media as an imperative today simply because search ranking, indexing, and subsequent monetization are directly tied to end-user experience and interaction.  The bottom line is social media marketing is relationship marketing.  You need to fish where the fish are.  To this end, our ultimate goal is to ensure a framework is in place to turn the world of social media into a strong asset and powerful tool to grow and extend your relationships and business.  Some (high-level) questions to answer before you get started include:

LISTEN | do YOU have the ability to monitor your brand?

Make sure you have the ability to update comments, requests, questions, and concerns in a timely manner.   It’s one thing to participate in the massive conversation that is social media, but if you have no mechanism for seeing what’s being said about you, your competition, your products, or your employees¾adding any real value to the conversation will be a challenge.   Consider investing in a social media monitoring solution (e.g. Radian6, Alterian), or you can even build your own using Google Reader if so inclined.

SPEAK |ARE YOU prepared to be transparent in your communications?

Social media has created a forum for people to openly voice their opinions.  If they feel that they’re being sold something that may be too good to be true, they surely will talk about it. So, admit your shortcomings, and exorcize your demons as quickly as you would your triumphs and successes.  This will earn people’s trust – the currency of the social sphere.

ENGAGE| ARE YOU prepared to BE PARTICIPATORY?

Social media acts as an enabler and facilitator of this two-way exchange with your prospects and consumers.   This exchange importantly evolves your communication platform from a (one-way) monologue to a (two-way) participatory experience.

GIVE | DO you have something of value to share?

This question may seem obvious, but just take a look at the myriad of Blogs and Twitter accounts that provide worthless, insipid content.   Moreover, companies that Tweet their “About Us” website page in 140 characters over the course of a week are adding nothing more then noise. Worse still, this will likely create detrimental brand exposure.   Best to start by creating original content that would be of value to prospects and clients - and then expose it to relevant social media channels.   Spread other people’s content as well (and give credit to the sources.)

These are just a few thoughts to start establishing a social framework for your brand.   More will follow in the upcoming weeks and months.  

Just remember, if you have any specific questions, we’re always here to help.  ;)