This is a short story illustrating just how much our ideas about Brands has evolved over the past 50 years.
I hope it leaves you with a smile on your face, a question in your head and the urge to go and read Marc Shillum's 'Branding is about creating patterns, not repeating messages' to discover more.
We'll begin our story by going back 50 years to the Golden Age of Advertising.
The world of the MadMen.
Imagine a young unknown Brand called Marc sitting across the table from Don Draper.
He pops the question. "If I was to ask you to launch Marc tomorrow what would you do?"
Don replies: "We have a young, promising Art Director. Andy is his name. He's full of ideas. Let me invite him into the conversation."
He makes the call: "Megan. Can you get Andy Warhol up here. Now?!"
Cut to the next scene and we see Andy doing his pitch.
It's a screen print of Marc that captures the Zeitgeist of of the Pop Art movement.
Marc's blown away by the chance to put a bit of colour back in his life.
Now for the media plan.
Of course things where a bit black and white in those days.
But at least people could tune into the Marc vibe and before long everyone aspired to be Marc.
Time stops for no man (except perhaps for an enlightened few survivors of the 60's).
But at least the Brand lives on.
Fast forward 20 years and the young, promising art director has drifted off into obscurity of the New York Art Scene and Don Draper is now writing TV screenplays.
The agency handling the Marc account continues to build the brand.
Everyone now has colour TV and the advent of database marketing means that everyone now receives their own targeted Marc promotion in the mail.
Fast forward another 20 years and we see that the Internet is now a small part of the media mix.
The direct marketing industry has evolved from you've got paper in the mail to you've got email.
We also discover that traditional advertising campaigns have become increasingly layered and textured.
For example Nike isn't just endorsed by one elite athlete but by many athletes.
Could it be the Brand is evolving from a single message into a pattern of messages?
Marc's agency responds to the challenge by launching the Many Colours of Marc.
Complete with an online do-it-yourself colouring in game.
Fast forward another 10 years and we are talking about the here and now.
Google has revolutionised the Direct Marketing industry and the hype surrounding the potential of social media has reach fever pitch.
The creative team working on Marc can see the trends.
The world of media is fragmenting before their eyes. They know they need to be doing something. But What?
Enter the Big Data guru. The answer is in the data. You just need to look for the patterns
Think PINK! and WOW! It looks like nearly the whole world thinks PINK!
Thinking small? Let's get intimate and discover those who like to live with a green wall.
Hit the real time button and suddenly the world becomes alive with the Global Conversation about Marc.
Today Marc has never looked so exciting. So energetic and so in tune with the zeitgeist.
And its all thanks to a new slogan.
Branding is about creating patterns, not repeating messages.
"Brands today exist in multiple mediums, defined by multiple voices.
The media brands inhabit is iterative, with no beginning, no end, and little permanency.
In that context, adherence to a big idea and endless repetition of centralized, fixed rules can make a brand seem unresponsive and out of step with its audience. " - Marc Shillum
Now let's continue the story with the aspirations of a young woman.
One self styled Lady MeMe.
Better know to her friends as Little Miss Me2.
She, like many of her generation, no longer just aspires to be LIKE Marc. She wants to be the NEXT Marc.
Here is her DIY Brand campaign. Is there nothing this PhotoShop generation can't do?
As you can see she is more of a Tom Wesselmann than an Andy Warhol girl.
After all why settle for being a Me2 when you can be a MKDO?
Along with everybody else of her generation she seeks out the Social Media gurus and invests heavily in the Social Media thing.
She Blogs before breakfast, Foursquares her commute, Facebooks between meetings, Instagrams her Lunch, Tweets as she talks, Tumblrs before Tea and updates her day on Google+ before she goes to sleep.
She is unique and she makes sure everyone knows it.
Here she is Tweeting, Facebooking and Blogging right now about Marc's insight into how Branding is about creating patterns, not repeating messages.
What's that you can't see her? Why is that?
What's that you say? They all look the same?
But they're all talking about Marc and she's so unique.
Surely she can't that hard to find?
Tell you what. Let's zoom in.
Just hang on while I adjust the volume control, the social graph, the influence score, the reputation metrics, the interest graph and of course the Signal to Noise ratio.
Just a tweek of the real time fire hose and here we go...
Hummm? Sorry about that. I must have hit the wrong button or something...
It's zoomed out to the max and it now seems to be stuck.
This is what the whole the So.Me world looks like at this moment in time.
It also appears we've have moved on from Warhol to Lichtenstein.
Both screen print artists of course. It's just Lichtenstein is better known for his dots.
I don't know if you can you see that? But there appears to be a bit of a shadow appearing in the patterns.
Just let me see if I can adjust the signal to noise ratio over here to see if we can get a better picture for you.
There you go.
It doesn't look too bad from a distance and you know I can't help but feel I know that guy from somewhere.
I just don't understand why he is in the picture.
After all, weren't we talking about how you build a global brand using social media?
OK. Sorry about that folks... Must have been some sort of Easter Egg embedded in the app.
You now what those programmer are like... always fooling around.
Did I ever tell you about the story of the DOD combat training app that had a PGA Golf Tour game embedded in it.
No? another time perhaps...
Back to the story.
As you will recall this is the story of Lady MeMe who wanted to become the next Brand LIKE Marc.
As you will recall this is her Tweeting, Facebooking and Blogging right now about Marc's insight into how Branding is about creating patterns, not repeating messages.
She is difficult to find amongst all the other individuals Blogging, Facebooking and Tweeting about Marc.
So lets once again try adjusting volume control, the social graph, the influence score, the reputation metrics, the interest graph and of course the Signal
To see if we can find her here amongst all that noise created by the real time fire hose .
Here we go...
Success. I knew it was easy. Can't help but think what went wrong last time we tried this.
Anyway as you can see. Although she is busy creating patterns of behaviour and messages.
The problem is compared to the total size of the network she is pretty much irrelevant in terms of influence.
With everybody else busy creating patterns. The patterns she, and everybody else are busy creating, are just adding to the noise.
As I have observed elsewhere your ability to dominate, never mind manage or control, the network is inversely proportional to the size of the network.
So as the network grows it become more and more complex and difficult to monitor, manage and maintain.
In this context trying build a brand by creating patterns is in practise just as difficult as trying to herd butterflies.
Clearly if social media is to help her build her Lady MeMe Brand she needs to Think Differently.
Perhaps even ask herself what would Steve Jobs do?
So let's ask the question: Realistically, apart from investing more time and energy creating more patterns, what are her options here?
Well she could do a Rebecca Black and inflect the network with a "Love Me or Hate Me" contagion.
As you can see viral infections are far more effective than patterns.
And this in itself tells us something about the nature of what we are dealing with.
These so called social networks are in reality complex adaptive systems. Cellular in nature and subject to changes brought about by external forces.
But more on that later...
Suffice to say if you take the time to explore what a meme is (i.e. a unit of culture (e.g. ideas, symbols and practises) that can be easily replicated and transmitted - A virus of the mind) you'll begin to ask yourself what is the difference between a successful meme and a successful Brand.
Alternatively if she's a bit of Tech Head she could take it to a whole new level and build a parallel network.
A whole new Lady MeMe platform were the whole world can come and be involved in what ever Lady MeMe's do.
This is a great strategy because it leaves everybody else with the problem of wasting their time and energy on creating the patterns.
After all why be a mere freemium slave when you can be the platform landlord?
Finally there is the Lovemark gambit where, rather than trying to affect change within the confines of the system, you become simply irresistible and reshape the landscape by sharing the love.
You see in the end great Brands are like magnets.
They draw people to them.
While simultaneously distorting our expectations and desires. (Think Apple)
Great Brands don't waste their time trying to participate in the conversation (Again Think Apple).
They understand implicitly they are in the business of framing the conversation (Now Think Coca Cola).
That's why Branding was, and always will be, about owning a word, a phrase or concept in the audience’s mind that is exclusive to you and your product.
Or, what we describe today as a meme.
They are what you might describe as point attractors.
They bring the system to rest.
They monopolise the conversation simply because they monopolise the imagination (Think No Logo).
New entrants disrupt the market not by creating patterns or going viral but by becoming strange attractors that take people towards a new way of thinking and more importantly acting.
Understand this and you'll not only realise why Facebook has become the new Kodak moment but also why the only Great Brands being built by your participation in social media are the platforms themselves.
Till next time…