A month ago, I attended Cellcom's second media conference. The truth is the main reason I went to the conference was that I wanted to hear Faris Yakob – McCann Ericson's EVP and Chief Technology Strategist speak. Faris turned out to be a self assured and charismatic speaker with an almost magical stage presence…he however is far more modest and just presents himself as a "Digital Ninja".
The subject of the lecture was "How technology is changing the world of advertising". His point was that technology today is everywhere. We all have access to computers, laptops or cellular devices. We consume and produce information all the time and for many of us, the boundaries between the online and offline worlds have blurred to a point where differentiating between the two has become not only impossible, but quite pointless.
These two factors coupled together have generated a collaborative culture where consumers together, through a variety of platform interfaces – are jointly weaving the story of the brand. They do this on whatever platform is available and most comfortable for them to use – but the principle is that all the pieces of narrative produced – contribute to the larger narrative: the brand story. This is what Faris calls "Transmedia storytelling".
But consumers will not contribute to building your brand's narrative if you do not know how to engage them. Faris offers 4 principles of action:
1. The principle of Ubiquity
Make more content. A lot more content. When President Obama ran for President, he produced a slew of clips for YouTube. Naturally, no one person has watched them all. But given those bits of information have already been posted – they can be watched whenever – forever. Hence, when you no longer have a captive audience and you can not compel people to give you their attention, it makes sense to produce much larger quantities of content and make many more things.
2. The principle of Alacrity
Respond faster. Make things faster. Today, thanks to technology, the time it takes us to respond has become significantly shorter. In certain countries, the spread speed of information is so rapid, that response time has come to ache to zero. Therefore, the time it takes us to respond and react to things has become critical. Schweppes understand this and have launched a biweekly print campaign called "Experience Matters "which refers to actual news events and stories.
3. The principle of Utility
Give your consumers things that are functional or helpful or otherwise things they are willing to devote time to. Today brands no longer need mediators or middlemen to communicate with their consumers; they can develop a relationship with them directly. But a relationship between a brand and its consumer will exist only under two conditions: Either the brand offers the consumer something useful or he offers him something he finds of interest – or both. Two good example s of this are Burger King's "Whopper Sacrifice" campaign and Cadbury's amazing "Gorilla" viral.
4. The principle of interactivity
Let consumers play a role. Digital culture is collaborative in nature. People want to be involved and play a role. Allow them to. Example –"Simpsonize me" application allowed people to picture what they would look like as a character in the animated "Simpson" television series..
And finally one other recommendation: Adopt a Fail Whale mentality
Embrace failure. Try many things. Let them run. Some of them will be successful, some of them will fail. From the latter you will actually learn the most. Correct them quickly. Launch them again. Reassess and carry on. One who does not fail, does not learn.
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