Damn current industry trends. They make a mockery of important steps in marketing and important partnerships. Every brand and “person” partnership is now being tagged as a “collaboration”. Every interaction that a brand has with a “celebrity” is a “collaborative and creative partnership”. So how do you cut through the difference between collaboration and simply a sponsorship or partnership?
For me, and I’m always happy to be shot down if someone has a better idea, collaboration isn’t necessarily about who you partner with, but what you can get that partner to do. What output are they going to create on your behalf? If a collaborator is simply a face in a photo, or a name on a golf club, or a name on a sneaker/trainer/tennis shoe, then it isn’t a collaboration.
A collaboration should be defined by two parties working cohesively together to create something new, something fresh and exciting. From Intel’s Creators Project partnership with United Visual Artists to Threadless’s ongoing commitment to produce the greatest crowdsourced tshirts, these types of collaboration are all about a visual creative output.
And as we have discussed previously in the post on The Visual Economy, this creative output is going to become more important in the eyes of the consumer in establishing how you value a brand.
Some great collaborations:
- Intel and United Visual Artists (Link here)
- Gap and CoolHunting (Link here)
- Range Rover Evoque and City Shapers (Link here) (See OKGO Collaboration with Range Rover’s GPS tool below)
Some non-collaborations:
- Eminem, Dr.Dre and Chrysler (great ads, but not what I would define as collaborations)
- Anything Tiger Woods and Nike or EA (great endorsements, but now what I see to be collaborations)
I’m sounding a warning. Broadcast companies are under a genuine threat. The content creation companies have a wide range of options for getting their content out there, which don’t involve the ABCs, NBCs or Discoverys of this world. This is nothing new. However, the sums that new “broadcast” companies are willing to pay for content has rocketed in the last few weeks.
Take the example of Netflix. Net neutrality strangling fears cast aside, Netflix has started to reposition itself. Not only has it acquired the first 7 series of MadMen (probably the best show on earth) at $700,000 show. (Yes you are right that is something over $50m)They have also paid to commission a Kevin Spacey drama series, a commitment of 26 episodes. This is exclusive content for Netflix users.
These sorts of models are everywhere. Brands can now extend the life of their film through social channels. Warner Bros are smashing everyone in this area with the launch of Dark Knight in Facebook. They are to follow this up with another 5 or 6 films. The best thing about this is that with an increase of 1.8m fans in the first week of Dark Knight they could be generating easily over $1m for a film that is three years old.
If Facebook can truly deliver a social HD viewing experience, then they have this area wrapped up. I think this is why YouTube have brought forward the launch of their Original Programming Channel. With $100m investment behind it, it sounds like it is more than just a PR story and a rebranded homepage. (Although a recent conversation with a client highlighted that YouTube weren’t expecting to pay for any of the content?…really??)
The potent combination of “social interaction > revenue generation” is why Facebook and YouTube are so desperate to get this model right. As a platform, entertainment and content is the only thing missing from Facebook’s armoury. It feels like the Warner Bros deal has marked an interesting direction for Facebook and you can guarantee they have seen the clear financial opportunity behind this.
So how long until these two worlds combine or collide. When will Facebook start acquiring content and launching their own Original Progamming Channel. I’m predicting that in 2012, we’ll see some interesting shapes from Facebook in this area.
But you can see why content creators are keeping their eye firmly on the three of YouTube, Facebook and Netflix. They have money to spend, they need their own original content and look like they are all testing the marketplace. These content creators could soon be able to offer up their content on a worldwide scale, be paid for it and have a deeper consumer involvement than TV offers them. Involvement is therefore the key and this is how content creation companies should do that:
I was speaking to an ex-colleague and great mind on digital, Dan Calladine this week. Dan is responsible for insight work and Futures at Aegis Media. He has some great presentations saved in Slideshare. (link here) One of these from last year talks about the fact that “the web is becoming more visual” highlighted by a number of different services such as Pinboard, Flipboard, Hipstamtic, Instagram, etc.
If this is true, then I feel we are entering into The Visual Economy. The Visual Economy being somewhere where brand’s worth, integrity and transparency is defined in terms of its visual identity. This would mean brands are not just about what they say, but how they show it. It means that an increasing value can be placed on a brand’s portrayal of itself in Flickr, Vimeo, YouTube, Photobucket, and even how its employees use different visual technologies to show their part in the brand.
The Visual Economy therefore puts a value on how these images are shared and the meaning that these images bring to the forefront of the consumer mind. It means they need to convey the same message that a text description does. It would mean that Google’s search engines place more importance on the visual identity and values of a site, then simply well written SEO text.
I think the drivers behind the Visual Economy are below.
The name of Malcolm Gladwell’s new book isn’t The Power of Ideology, but after viewing his passionate discussion on CNN with Fareed Zakaria, you could be forgiven for thinking the same thing. Although very inspiring I have always found the simplicity of the ideas in Gladwell’s books frustrating. Frustrating, not because the books are bad, but simply because they are such simple instinctive thoughts, that you wish you had generated them yourself. Blink is all about going on your instinct, The Tipping Point do the right things with the right audience, and Outliers the people that are most successful have worked incredibly hard to get there. Gladwell is a fine example of this.
Yesterday, Gladwell was interviewed on CNN by Fareed. The discussion point was the power of social media around the revolutions in North Africa and the Middle East. This has been a talking point amongst many experts in the industry and until now these revolts had been justified as being one of the powers of social media. Social media having a political impact for change.
Gladwell disagrees, passionately. He rightly harks back to revolutions, riots, the Berlin Wall, showing that technology doesn’t have to be the main driver. In fact, in all cases where technology is available its a secondary driver, merely a tool. The first driver is a collective feeling. The driver is ideology and purpose, not technology.
I think this is a really interesting point of view. It certainly helps to shape a way of thinking for brands, that we should be focused on ideology and purpose, not the technology. A clear ideology ( a set of values and principles) and a defined purpose (why the hell are we here?) is a powerful stimulant to any brand.
Once this ideology and purpose are defined, the tools that are used through social media become much more powerful, creating the driver that we see in revolutions and revolts. If the ideology and purpose is clear, then it is easy for communities to form, grow, and accelerate. I thought I would sketch a model to see where I got to on this and believe the sketch below is a good model of Ideology. Would love to hear thoughts on this?
Lead, Direct, Do. Its not a bad starting point for thinking about social. I was triggered to think about this after reading an interesting post on HBR (Link Here). My frustration with this industry has always been the tactics salesmen, the how-toers, the Top fivers, the Best Ofers. And I think in some cases perhaps we have become slightly lazy in the way we plan and think strategically about social.
Its no wonder that a lot of the social media campaigns we see look, feel, and do the same things… (Old Spice Man you’ll have seen but Mr.Motivator for MacMillan (link here) seen it before right?) they are born out of the same learnings, the same recommendations, and the same way of thinking. A model of repetition if you like. Tactics over strategy. Its certainly not what I learnt at Uni. But it could be the reason why 73% of Marketeers are saying they don’t know what their social strategy is.
Tactics are a bad starting point for any campaign. Yet it seems this is where many campaigns kick-off from. Its where the conversation starts as “how do we use Facebook?” not “Does Facebook fit into our strategy?”, its where there isn’t massive room for diversifying. And bless tactics, they simply can’t do everything on their own.
This is where strategy comes in. Strategy tells tactics what to do. Strategy directs. Strategy says here is a framework, here is the objectives, here is what we think we should do. It then relies on tactics to deliver. (For an interesting piece on this look at Dave Trott’s Hitler v Churchill on Brand Republic http://t.co/KIYjARO)
Within this framework, strategy helps to steer tactics, it helps to say “no to your latest social media network” and “yes to that’s the direction”.
The interesting thing, is that now I think slightly differently. Actually, strategy can’t simply do everything on its own. (And yes, this has sadly been driven by a personal experience) Strategy can drive tactics yes, but what is driving and supporting strategy? Well, in the case of social strategy that is a supporting social culture. A brand has to want to be social internally as well as externally.
Social culture says “we want to be social”, “we want to share more of what we do internally”, “we want our people to be the spokespeople”, “we want our customers to be at the heart of what we do”. Without this, a social strategy is a false framework for tactics which may work, but don’t connect.
So lets start at the very beginning, let’s start with social culture, ignore social media, and write social strategies. Then and only then, we will be creating unique social and citizen focused brands.
