Themes underpinning digital branding
MACE Congress 2008
Patrick CollingsSagacite Brand Agency
Stellenbosch15 - 17 October 2008
5Themes
The flow, not the contours
The art of gliding
15MB is the new 15 minutes
Our virtual reality
Reassembling the fragmentation
The flow, not the contours
from mainframe to desktop to internet
internet explorer rapidly losing ground to firefox
myspace sharing social networking with facebook and others
mainstream media battling bloggers
traditional blogging sharing space with micro blogging
altavista was king before google, will cuil manage to dent the colossus
understand where your market is going and why it is going, but
appreciate that the vehicle for getting there will probably change
The art of gliding
you are not in controleven when you think you are
GM’s Chevy Tahoe SUV
video clip of user generated tahoe “commercials”
today, everyone can be a director
video clip of user generated polo “commercial”
collection of guinness ads
video clip of non-sanctioned guinness ad
“... they have to keep on consistently building their brands equity so that when a potentially damaging piece of communication does filter out into the world, their brand is strong enough and their consumers are savvy enough to understand its source is the public domain.”
your brand does not need you to be online
others will put it there
invisibleinvisible
small
7 Guidelines
watch it
increasingly need to be there
empower
engage, or not
integrate
don’t fake it
don’t box the demographic
7 = soaring + gliding + influencing
accept the loss of complete control and become part of the experience
and conversation
ipod photo by Вася Артёмов (http://www.flickr.com/photos/78518472@N00/2274202900/)
15MB is the new 15 minutes
video clip of ad men employment ad
as a society we are becoming more visual
“video beats pictures beats text” - trendwatching.com 2008 report
what sort of numbers are we talking about
five billionvideos serves each month by youtube
44 percentof all online video consumption
in the U.S.A.
embedded video clip of instructional video
what about the news media
news media is promoting video offlinesouth african media organizations developing
plans with vide as an integral offering
4Guidelines
you have to be seen
integrated part of brand communication
parts are greater than the whole
must entertain
we will increasingly tell our brand stories in video and need to weave
our brand inextricably into the frames of the video
Our virtual reality
video clip of sony home virtual world
video gamesaren’t these just
players build their own worlds2
players sell what they own4
1 players create their own stories
players own what they built 3
By 2011, 80% of active internet users will have an avatar
Gartner Consulting
your kids probably alreadydo
barbiegirls
webkinz
clubpenguin
zwinky
neopets
imvu
second life
gaia
habbo
redlightcenter
kaneva
unique US visitors in Sept 07, in millions
the virtuality of second lifeintroducedthe reality of avatarsto adults
from september 2006 to june 2008, the number of second life members grew from 800,000 to 14,000,000
they came
during the same period the number of simultaneous second life users grew from 10,000 to 65,000
they played
in the space of 18 months the average value of transactions per day on second life went from $500,000 to between $1m and $2m*
they paid
1,000,000 to 2,000,000
* Figure estimated
32average age
45% females
32avg hours pm
US
Europe
Japan
Brazil
Canada 17,000
27,000
29,000
160,000
187,000
Most Active Avatars in SL by Region - December 2007
great virtual land rushphilips c|net adidas mercedes
bmw dell mazda microsoft reuters sony bmg vodafone l’oreal ibm mtv
what went wrong
brands rushed inthey didn’t look right or leftattempted to conquerrather than integratefailed to realize virtual is not the same as physical
brands stumbled
life goes on
what should brands do
in branded entertainmentnatural integration into the story line
understand how brands operate
in social media & networksmultiple conversations and loss of control
understand how brands operate
in user-generated contentunsanctioned content, mashups and fragmentation
understand how brands operate
some guidelines
see virtual worlds as evolving stories21 be aware
don’t try conquer, immerse 3
see virtual worlds as evolving stories2
treat virtual worlds as petri dishes4
1 be aware
don’t try conquer, immerse 3
innovate and produce multiple options
photo by Esprit de sel's (http://www.flickr.com/photos/esprit_de_sel/2596849895/sizes/l/#cc_license)
avatars areescapingtheir virtualworlds
of 23 million and counting
340m i l l i o na c c o u n t s
4Questions
how close will people and their avatars track one another in brand consumption
which one will be the greater influencer on choice of brand
will avatars become brand ambassadors
what will determine legal right to ownership of an avatar
“One of the things our grandchildren will find quaintest about us is that we
distinguish the digital from the real, the virtual from the real. In the future, that will
become literally impossible. The distinction between cyberspace and that which isn’t cyberspace is going to be unimaginable”
William Gibson
photo by INTVGene (http://www.flickr.com/photos/intvgene/370973576/sizes/l/)
Reassembling the fragmentation
video clip of the modernista Web 2.0 website
1Observation
brands must exist in the parts as much as they do in the whole
For ongoing coverage of and commentary on brands in the digital arena please visit the Brand Architect blog at http://www.collings.co.za/
Thanks to Tyler Reed for introducing me to the quote “15MB is the new 15 minutes”
Patrick [email protected]+27 (0)83 616 0967