Where's the long tail of brand communication? [UPDATED]

I have been hard at work the past few months hammering away at extending Chris Anderson's Long Tail theory to the field of brand communication and brand-building. After repeated reading and re-reading of Chris' book and writing and re-writing of my own thoughts, I have finally got myself to hit the 'make pdf' button and have digitally shrink-wrapped copies of the resulting paper for distribution.

In it's 22 pages you'll find the answers all of these questions : What do you get when you apply the first principles of long tail economics to the craft of brand building? Can you create a complex, layered brand image by resorting to simple advertising? What role is user generated content going to play in the future of mainstream advertising? What lessons can space exploration and robotics teach the practitioners of brand-building? What's the evolving science of negative databases and why do we brand custodians need to learn about it? Why is the single-minded brand proposition an anachronism in the contemporary world of marketing?

You can download the paper here : The Elongating Tail of Brand Communication: An approach to brand-building incorporating long tail economics

I would love to hear comments and views. 

UPDATE: Chris Anderson has just posted and commented on the paper on his Long Tail blog :)

UPDATE 2: Atticus Award for the 'The Elongating Tail...' paper

UPDATE 3 (20th Aug 2007): A proposal to convert the above paper into a ChangeThis Manifesto is currently up for vote. Please do vote for it by following this link. Voting ends 16th Sept. 2007.

Comments

[meraj]

1.

sounds very promising Iqbal. will surely send you across my views on this one.

cheers!
m

[Matt Hamilton]

2.

Hi Mohammed,
I had a chance to read your article today and tought it complemented Chris Anderson's book well. It was interesting and timely for me as my company is currently seeking ways to pursue more 'long tail' customers.
You took the opportunity to criticize One Word Equity in branding but your article has brought to my attention the opposite problem for me. I work at MagnetStreet, which sells promotional magnets. For too long, we've been branding ourselves as best for price AND high capacity AND turnaround time, quality, convenience, designs and customer service to ALL of our customers and prospects. Having such a broad brand is really no brand at all. With your thoughts on the Long Tail of Branding, I'm encouraged to segment our targets and tailor the brand. To brides, we'll emphasize our designs. To pro sports teams, high quantity. Real estate agents convenience; small business owners price; etc...
Also, using several 'out of control' messages has the potential to fragment the company image and challenge traditional thinking. But it also has the power to deliver a consistent message to all segments: we listen to our customers and care enough to provide relevent messages. Thank you for posting your article!

[Alan Macpherson]

3.

I just read your article and wanted to congratulate you on a clear and concise transplanting of Long Tail thinking as it relates to branding.
I have been on a not dissimilar quest in changing the focus of a tradition-soaked hard goods manufacturing company - the 'hit' leader in the niche musical instrument/products industry. (Yes, I'm aware of that little irony ;-)
I too eagerly read Chris Anderson's book and check on his blog regularly as I track the sea change happening right now.

Unfortunately 'scarcity' for my company will, by necessity, continue to be a problem and tweaking SCM efficiencies can only help so much with much of our product offering. For eg, pre-filtering will still be the norm for handcrafted instruments until the promise of Star Trek tech is realized (go replicators go!).

The fundamental position you take in this article is what I find most exciting: it offers hope for low budget operators in niche markets (with a multitude of segments and varying messages to nurture).
Here's to your article going super-viral in all the right niches!

[blaiq]

4.

Thanks for posting your comments here, Matt & Alan. While I have drawn only upon my own knowledge and experience in writing the paper, I'm really excited to hear it resonating with others and finding application in the world out there :)

[Manish]

5.

Brilliantly written and argued! i havent yet read the Long Tail so was a gud summary as well ofr me:-)...

some pointers
1. i think you are being a bit too harsh on Lord Maurice...

Not that I agree with his one-word equity theory but even then the one word can hold an entire world.

Refreshing(Coke), safety(Volvo) etc are not just words but entire world-views!!

2. A single Brand Idea is very often a multi layered Gestalt and therefore not equal to single -minded brand proposition.

3. Agencies at the leading curve have already moved away from single minded one word proposition...most notably boguskys work in crispin, W+K..Practice is way ahead of theory...

4. i loved this point about - Time being a natural elongating-agent of a brand communication market...had often wondered about it and was hovering in my head since my pepsi servicing days

5. you have inspired me to delve into 'Long Tail'

and iq you write so blooody well!! cheers

[blaiq]

6.

Thanks, Manish.

Some 'pointers' to your 'pointers':

1. If you thought I was being harsh, you should have read what the blogosphere was abuzz with a few months ago.

2. A single brand idea is a multi-layered gestalt? It is impressive-sounding plannerspeak but you and I know that it's not true - in theory or in practice :)

3. Which came first - gravity or the theory about gravity? A theory is a way of explaining things that already exist. In fact, even Chris Anderson admits in his book that the true originator of the long tail idea is not him but Jeff Bezos (and other entrepreneurs) who were already practicing these principles in their respective businesses - which eventually provided the data that led to the formulation and validation of the theory.

Having said that, I haven't yet seen any true examples of long tail brand-building out there. On the other hand, extrapolating from my paper the only conclusion that should be drawn is that wherever you have an entity (creative, planning, marketing) directing the way things are and taking 'control' - you can be very sure there will be no long tail blooming there.

A long tail has to be populated by agents acting independently for it to work.

Therefore the paradigm I am talking of is not 'choosing more than one proposition' but instead of populating the brand communication curve with all possible propositions and giving every single one of them a chance.

[Anbuchezhian]

7.

Brilliant Post Iqbal. And many a thanks for opening me up to Long Tail. Very interesting.

I have a feeling, correct me if am wrong,I see Long Tail approach taking on the the Theory of Core Competence and trying to refute it.

[blaiq]

8.

Sorry for the delay in my response, Anbu. Your question got me thinking. Initially I was of the opinion that the Long Tail is more an outward market-related manifestation and isn't really refuting the idea of core competence.

But as I am interacting with people on the paper and engaging in discussions I am also clarifying in my mind what the full implications of a long tail approach are.

And now I think you are absolutely right. A long tail brand communication exercise will be inside-out and undirected - as against the outside-in and directed approach we currently take. And to truly harness the tail one has to forego the idea of core competence and develop multiple competencies - sort of like showing up tops on Google on multiple keywords.

Thanks for your comment and for flagging this.

[Kevin Alexander]

9.

Mohammed,

In a word “great”! I would have said “great work” but that would be two words and that would break Lord Maurice Saatchi's view of the world .
I would like to commend you on a wonderfully written paper which goes a long (tail) way to explain more practical applications of the Long tail. You are correct the long tail is about abundance and instance. But these very traits of the Long Tail tend to overwhelm even the best of traditional marketers and business. I have been working in “open source” for many years and ultimate power of collaboration is abundance, openness and self direction. So I feel very close to the words that you and Chris have written. In the past year I have been approached by several “traditional” ( single brand messaging) corporations to help them understand how they can “use the long tail”. I can tell you that these were very difficult meetings because of traditional thinking in the room. It was very interesting to see the reaction to the “near zero” model when the corporation had just spent 40 million in a web branding effort. The web branding effort did not work which is partly why I was there to help them understand. BTW they still don't get it, but I will keep trying.
So long gone are the traditional models (although some people do not understand that part of the message) and the new fast moving, abundance model in now fully in play.
I can hardly wait for your next paper on the elongated tail .......................

[blaiq]

10.

Thanks, Kevin. Good to know it's not just me who encounters those blank stares :)

[John Ounpuu]

11.

"In effect, the communication for every brand represents an individual market in which different messages
for that brand compete for consumer attention and time."

I read that line and a little light bulb went off over my head. Thanks for the fresh perspective. Have you submitted it to ChangeThis yet?

[James]

12.

Hi blaiq, thank you much for writing the long tail of branding paper. Some excellent thought and consideration clearly went into it. I also think you're a very talented, cogent writer. Well done. I read it over lunch and felt like I was reading a prescription for AdHack, the project I'm working on and launching in the next few months - www.adhack.com. Please let me know if you'd like to be invited in as an early participant.

[blaiq]

13.

@John: Thanks, John. It's indeed flattering that you think I should submit this to Change This. I am indeed going to give it a shot.

@James: I checked out adhack.com briefly and I would love to join in.

[Bayo Adekanmbi]

14.

I don’t fully agree with the full-scale application Anderson’s long tail theory in brand building practice.
It’s an entropy (disorderliness and mental chaos) to over-expand or over-dilute a brand’s meaning in an attempt to mean something to everybody (no matter how long the tail is!). Modern researches have proven that if a brand’s projection is a clear and focused lighthouse, consumers can capture the core essence of the brand within their realities i.e. customize the brand meaning for their specific scenarios.
Consumers can therefore contextualise its relevance whilst still inferring the same single-minded meaning.
Universalists must recognise that every brand is a compelling idea that consumers interpret via usage to meet their peculiar needs. I would rather focus on the brand single minded projection and leave the multiple interpretations to the consumers
One-word-equity is it and let’s be disciplined in our quest to secure a space in ever-crowded mindspace

[Sherbin]

15.

Hi Iq,

Just read your award winning paper.I think the long tail is one of the most relevant economic model in the new world led by niche choices.In a media perspective an average viewer/listener is bombarded by too many media around him from TV to mobile to user generated contents (UGC) so that it is very difficult to get his uninterrupted attention at any given point of time. If we take TV specifically there are so many channels catering to specific interests (which we call niche) and there is viewership for each of them and thereby as a whole they might be as big or even bigger than the mass channels. If at all this not the case now, this is going to be the future if channels are going to proliferate at this rate.This tail is going to be omnipresent if you take any particular genre in specific and there comes the relevance of program specific planning and razor sharp buying. Another interesting point of view in this line of thought is that, If a person is watching a program which is very niche and of specific interest to him, the zapping propensity is going to be really low. This is a very subjective thought, but apparently some figures on popular niche programs really support the view point.

[blaiq]

16.

Thanks, Sherbin, for your thots. From personal experience, I do agree with your hypothesis about a lesser propensity to surf channels while viewing niche programming.

[Brand Communication]

17.

If there is one thing that always startles me, it is the difference in the quality of brand. Why is it that one brand will far surpass other brands, and why is it that people will stick to one brand over another.
I am still yet to read further about long tail ... I am sure I will find it interesting.