MisEntropy

The customer is the ad agency

Tripletz.com is an on demand publishing service for user created greeting cards. But that's not all. The designs one creates can also be made available for sale to others too. If a particular design sells 111 times, Tripletz will pay the creator $111.

Threadless is a T-Shirt company that sells designs that are contributed by a community of consumers/t-shirt designers. These designs are voted upon by the community. The winning designs get produced and the winning designer receives a cash reward along with a cut of the profits from the sale of the design.

Distributed co-creation - that's what it's called - is here to stay. And the above two are just some of many such business opportunities being pursued with great gusto all across the world. (Threadless already is a big success story and a poster boy for the phenomenon.)

Which brings me to the heresy in the title of this post.

I don't see why something that works for software, greeting cards, t-shirts, Lego kits and even cosmetics (a brand called Missha in South Korea) can't work for advertising. In fact, I don't just think it could work - I think its a development that's inevitable.

Here's how it could/should work.

A brand or more likely, a group of brands, will build an online social network/community of designers, communicators and non-professionals who will be then provided with the inside dope about a brand - the product, the service, the offer - in effect, the brief. These co-creators will also be provided an 'advertising' kit with the necessary tools to help them put their ideas in shape - these could include photography, video clips, etc.

The advertising submissions generated are then subjected to a vote - both by the community and the consuming audience at large. This will happen under the supervision of the brand custodians - who will weed out profanities and controversial stuff (and who hopefully will go easy on less-than-mainstream messages.)

The submissions that score well will then be placed in the relevant media - and tracked for results. The ones that don't generate responses will be weeded out - and the ones that do will receive more airtime. The success of the later could also convince the co-creator or the brand to seek extensions of executions, which will then again go through the same process.

When a piece turns in a pre-agreed number of responses, the creator gets paid. And the cycle continues.

This will result in two things. A) There's a huge variety of messages and strategies that are generated for each task - all for no cost. B) Advertising that works will be rewarded.

Who can argue with that? Apart from agencies, ie.

Admittedly, distributed co-creation of advertising works better for direct/demand-generation/online messages where the tracking of consumer responses is easier and implicit. But as tracking abilities and models increase in sophistication, there's no reason why it shouldn't work for all kinds of advertising - and across all media.

But what about the brand and its core essence? Won't rampant co-creation destroy the singular positioning a brand has fightingly carved for itself?

You wouldn't worry about that, if you know what happens when the long tail collides with the Victorian world of brand-building.

[Image via Kate A]

The celebrity blogger as brand ambassador

In a recent blog post, Brants raises an interesting question : How should a celebrity endorser who aslo blogs react in a crisis afflicting the brand? Should he be true to his brand or to the spirit of blogging?

Brants also quotes the example of celebrity blogger Amitabh Bachchan and a micro-crisis that erupted with his blogging service recently (who are rumoured to be paying him a fortune to blog there.) That incident, however, seemed manufactured to me - after all Bollywood actors are used to 'creating' incidents/romances/accidents to promote films.

But if a real crisis - a la pesticides in cola - erupt, what should the celebrity blogger as brand ambassador do? Churn out one blog post after another and use his enhanced authority to stoutly defend the brand? Or join the consumers on the street and demand answers/clarifications/actions?

There's no formula - and different brand-celebrity permuations and combinations will react in different ways. From celebrity foolhardily defending the brand to celebrity remaining mum and letting his silence speak. But what's clear is the inclusion or exclusion of a celebrity's blog property will indeed feature prominently in negotiations - allowing the celebrity in question to command a premium over a plain vanilla celebrity endorser with no blog property.

But brands and brand ambassadors will do well to remember one thing. Celebrity endorsers don't exactly score very highly on trust and are mostly viewed with skepticism. Audiences might like celebrities but they also understand that endorsements are brokered over money, not good-feelings.

Endorsements are usually the rubbing together of two brands - one product, the other person - with the hope of the transfer of some property from seller (celebrity) to buyer (brand.) How both react if a crisis were to erupt, will affect the future brand equity and following of both of them.

A smart celebrity will be aware that ensorsements will come and go, but one's blog will stay.Whether it stays overflowing with a dedicated community of followers or as an empty edifice, will be determined by his actions in the present.

The perils of Science by Twitter

In a recent blog post, Neil Perkin notes the adoption of Twitter to announce major scientific discoveries.

It indeed is interesting to see the changing dynamic between the high priests of science and the common man. What once seeped in through many time-consuming layers of seeming scientific red tape, now arrives as tweets from an alien world heralding major discoveries to all who would care to listen. Instantaneous, authentic, unfiltered and unstifled - almost like Archimedes' naked eureka outburst.

I am all for the greater and quicker spread of scientific knowledge and discoveries - especially in this case, where the discoveries are being funded by tax-payer money (the US citizens', not mine :)

However, the use of social media to do that presents some pitfalls.

Scientific American recently carried a feature titled Science 2.0 which delved into the the use of blogs, wikis and the like by scientists to share what is best described as 'work in progress.' It seems what concerns scientists most about social media is the risk of being scooped and losing credit and lucrative patents.

But when dealing with the public dissemination of science, there's an even greater risk. The spread of premature science - or sometimes, even false science.

And water on Mars is indeed a good example of that - it is a claim that has been made for almost a century. Most notably by Percival Lowell (hailed as a hero whose work led to the first American discovery of a planet; undone now by Pluto's demotion) - who 'saw' canals, oases and advanced civilisation on Mars. His claims created great excitement amidst the public - only to be proved wrong.

The moral of the story: science is not only about making claims. It is about observation, reasoning, proofs, counter-claims, peer review and the like, a process of rigour that is essentially institutionalised as the scientific method.

The failure to adhere to these processes before making scientific discoveries public is only bound to cause confusion - and probably even disillusionment with the claims and with science itself. This comment by one reader left in the WIRED article announcing Twitter's announcement of the Mars water discovery, says much:

"I fail to see what's so big about these recent discoveries of ice. I mean, haven't we known that there's water ice on Mars for some time now?
Evidence of water ice at Mars' southern pole, in 2004: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3426539.stm
From 2007: http://jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2007-030"

Posted by: Gadren | Jun 19, 2008 6:37:17 PM

To be honest, I have heard of the discovery, re-discovery and conclusive proofs of the discovery of water on Mars for some time now. I have no idea what's the real significance of the current discovery (though I am convinced there is some significance). And Twitter, with 140 emotion-bursting-from-the-seams words has only served NASA's cause - that of creating public excitement - and not that of science.

[A more relevant example of how Twitter can make science more accessible comes from the work of Tom Taylor. He has taken the unwieldy NASA Near Earth Object Database to create " @lowflyingrocks, a Twitter bot that speaks whenever a rock passes within 0.2 AU of Earth." You can read more about it in his talk 'Delighting with Data.']

Finally, here's one of the many laws attributed simply as Murphy's Laws :

"Tell a man there are 300 billion stars in the universe and he’ll believe you. Tell him a bench has wet paint on it and he’ll have to touch to be sure."

As Percival Lowell would attest, the same holds true for 'water on Mars' stories. With or without the mediation of Twitter.

Consumer Liberty and Brands

Came across this quote by Patrick Henry :

"The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them."

With my current thinking of consumers as constituencies and the imperative of introducing unconditional transparency I think that can very well read as:

"The liberties of consumers never were, nor ever will be, secure when the transactions of their brands may be concealed from them."

An interesting development...

There's an entry over at Urban Dictionary that effectively redefines 'interesting' to mean the exact opposite. And going by the voting, it does seem to resonate with a lot of people. Perhaps then I should re-title this post 'An un-interesting development'?

[Original pic by Digital Explorer]

The future of: news reporting?

Sometime in the near future, Wikipedia will absorb and back up all the information in the world even as it’s being created. It’s already doing a good job of it – and it’ll only get better.

And when that happens, we will be able to follow the latest news by simply subscribing to the ‘Recent changes’ page of Wikipedia - which will hopefully come with RSS feeds, and tags to help us find the stream(s) we are interested in.

Encyclopaedias will then stop being the long-term by-products of the gathering, analysing and reporting of news. Instead, news will become the by-product of creating an encyclopaedia.

Which, probably, is the way it should be.

Necker Cube and the Art of Planning

Necker Cube (pictured above) is a two-dimensional line drawing that’s perceived by the human eye as a transparent three-dimensional cube. The optical illusion it’s famous for, however, doesn’t just end there.

Stare at the Necker Cube for a while and you’ll suddenly see it flip to face a different direction. Keep on staring at it and you can get it to flip back and forth between these two different faces.

According to Wikipedia, this illusion is perpetrated because of the way the lines of the cube are drawn – when they intersect, there’s nothing to tell us which of the lines is in front and which one is behind. This makes both interpretations perfectly valid – thereby hiding, and revealing, a different face to the cube.

The Necker Cube is also my favourite analogy for what a planner – and the discipline of planning – should do. I believe it’s a planner’s job to stare at the world long enough to find the flip-view in a certain situation. A view that’s consistent with everything you know – but one that’s often invisible to the casual eye.

The world is full of intersecting lines where – in reality – there’s no information about which one’s in front and which one’s behind. Similar to our casual first view of the Necker Cube, we adopt a straightforward interpretation that seems obvious – and neglect looking for other valid ways of seeing the same thing.

By deliberately focusing on the intersections in the world – a planner should open a window for others to see what was imperceptible earlier.

PS: If you haven’t been able to find the flip face of the Necker Cube above, try focusing on the intersections of the lines. If you’re still unable to see the two faces, here’s an animation that makes it easier to spot the two views.

Radical Transparency and the Right to Information

When WIRED recently announced that transparency is a judo move, they obviously didn't mean what PSFK discovered at the Captial One offices recently.

That gaffe, however, set me thinking.

In this world of radical transparency, co-creation, customer participation, etc - are companies doing everything they can to win the trust of their customers? I think not.

It's a long way off, but I think someone, somewhere out there will make the ultimate transparency judo move - to enshrine a right to information clause in its brand charter.

As per the clause, anyone - consumer, press or competition - can demand (not request, but demand) to see any information about a company/brand and the company will willingly oblige. Not as a favour - but as a self-imposed obligation.

What such a move would do, above everything else, is to regulate and weed the kind of supercilious thinking that brands have in the lower ranks. Because - even sales training manuals and sessions - are open to scrutiny by the very people they are designed to ensnare.

While seemingly improbable, I think the RTI clause isn't too much of a long shot. When the honeymoon of  collaborations and user-generated strategy is over - when consumers are no longer grateful for just being asked to contribute - they will demand their pound of flesh for what they offer.

That is more transparency - and not of the 'look I'm doing you a favour' sort.

[Original pic by mstephens7]

The irrational basis of brands?

The recent Economist carries an article about the endowment effect - a curious, irrational and universal human behaviour that makes us place a higher value on something the moment we own it, as against how much we valued it before we own it.

The effect has been observed in hundreds of experiments - in humans and even in some animals too. A classic experiment illustrates how students who have initially been given coffee mugs are then reluctant to exhange the coffee mug for chocolates - even though they showed no preference for coffee mugs when offered to choose between the two.

All this flies in the face of traditional economic thinking, whose model of the rational man is one who maximises welfare; ownership of something then shouldn't change its value.

Which makes me wonder. Could the endowment effect be at the heart of how and why brands work?

Only in this case what we are placing more value on is certain bits and pieces of information - information that builds preference for a particular brand. Even when we are offered a more 'logical' and rational exhange of better information (the availability of a cheaper substitute, for eg.), we cling on to what we have already internalised and own.

The trick in this case is to make people 'own' the information that builds preference for one's brand. Once they see it as belonging to them, they'll be reluctant to give it up in exchange for something else.

I am not sure if any study or experiement can establish a connect between brands and the endowment effect - or if the latter does indeed work on something as intangible as information. But I, for one, am  convivced there's more than just a passing connection of 'irrationality' between them.

The Great Wall of Planning

Campaign recently carried a piece - Planner v Planner - in which David Hackworthy of The Red Brick Road and Ivan Pollard of Naked Communications debated whether an account planner can do a communication planner's role - or vice versa.

Both echo each other's thoughts - arguing for the exclusion of their own territory and specialisation. Their mutual view is that there's nothing stopping one from doing the job of the other - except a basketload of specialised skills that one wouldn't reasonably expect to find in the opposite number.

Personally, I stand for the daVinci-sation of planning and of all advertising itself - that one only is as limited as one believes he or she is.

Nonetheless, in a world where walls are being torn down - especially between creative and the rest of the agency - I find it amusing that it hasn't arrested the inclination to build more walls and ghettos elsewhere.

[Original pic by Jōsé]