A comment on my last post made a good point: as an employee of an agency for Old Spice, it wasn't really fair for me to call out Axe or BBH without disclosing that I work for an agency that handles a competitive brand.
In the interest of full disclosure, W+K handles Old Spice.
So while that commenter may have wanted to write off everything I posted as bias (how I love the interweb), that doesn't really jibe with all the positive callouts I have done on this blog for other "competitive" agencies...and yes...brrrrr...even competitive BRANDS, doing great work.
Amusingly, the person used an email address that masked their identity to upbraid me about a lack of transparency - "[email protected]".
More importantly, and why I actually felt it important to follow up, is I was accused of "bashing brands going 2.0" by that commenter, and a few others may have gotten that feeling too. Whooaa! By no stretch of the imagination did I mean to suggest brands should not engage in social media - quite the contrary. I have often stated that it isn't actually up to brands whether to "do social media" - frankly, their only choice is whether they will choose to participate in the conversations already happening and maybe start some interesting ones themselves. That is the reality. And I love it dearly. Maybe too much. SO GET IN THERE!
But I believe that "participating" in "social media" isn't just pointing at stuff. Brands just pointing at stuff without a point of view feels like either (a) a bad replacement for a good idea, or (b) a half-assed compromise with a legal department:
Brand/Agency: We want to do social media. Engage in conversations!
Legal: WHAT? ARE YOU HIGH? And get sued when someone posts a music track? I don't need [record label] crawling up my [expletive]. Who's going to vet all this stuff? What's the review process?
Brand/Agency: It's social! We have to let what happens, happen!
Legal: [stony silence]
Brand/Agency: S...s...soc...social media? Web...2.0?
Legal: [stony silence]
Brand/Agency: Right. Ah....what can we do?
Legal: (grumbling) IF you want to "feature" content freely available elsewhere (subject to terms of service, of course), and IF we merely point/link to it, and make it clear we ARE NOT curating it, and you CLEARLY attribute it to a third party, we may be able to do that. I'm not saying it's not without risk, but it would theoretically be acceptable risk...as long as we post our privacy policy and T&C's...
Brand/Agency: YAY! Wild and crazy "Social Media", here we come!
No I was posting to call out LAMENESS.
A lame brand is a mirror that simply reflects the world we know now (hence my distaste for creative focus groups, an entirely different subject).
A dynamic brand listens well, engages provocatively and relevantly, and leads me somewhere new.
Do we at W+K always pull it off? No, not always.
We are all learning just how dynamic a brand can be. And how fun and challenging it can be.
No sleep 'til Brooklyn, No time for lameness.
Time for some new blood in the legal dept! I'm moving from one side of that imagined conversation to the other (legal); hoping to be able to change the outcome of that kind of compromise.
Posted by: luke gilman | 2009.04.12 at 09:52
Utility versus creativity often get confused in a lot of this new stuff along with what is an "idea." Doing social media (or whatever you want to call it) isn't unto itself an idea, too many seem to think it is though. Modernista pointing to stuff about the web was useful though not that creative. But still, a good idea for them, at the time.
Skittles using the same tactic is novel but not that useful nor creative. I give them kudos for trying but feels like the idea here was to do social media, not lets come up with a great idea that can live in, lead or generate social media.
The good news in all this for me is the sheer novelty is wearing off this stuff resulting in increasing expectations. Great ideas are becoming table stakes. The first mover benefit has passed, and now brands need to reach past the navel gazing marketing types to reach, engage, and include real people.
Posted by: Brett T. T. Macfarlane | 2009.04.04 at 16:13