irony

by jenks

a trend’s success

“Is The Tipping Point Toast?” asks the recent FastCompany article in which researcher duncan watts talks about his findings (and their less than exuberant reception) that expose the billion dollars a year marketers spend targeting “influentials” as a waste of money.

i am constantly repeating the phrase that “we buy the brands and products that we feel express aspects of our identity,” and this applies to ideas as well. we buy into and espouse the ideas that express aspects of who we are. our “intuition” in that sense, could be seen not so much a kind of internal tuning fork dinging to the tone of the universe, but rather an insidiously partial filter which evaluates the validity of information based on its compliance with our ingrained personal predispositions. for marketers–an avocation that calls for a particular breed of identity, of course–it’s no doubt easy to latch on to the idea that a select few influential individuals wield the capacity to push trends over the tipping point simply by their involvement in the process. after all, considering what we do it’s pretty “intuitive” for us, isn’t it?

from the fastcompany article:

Marketing has always relied heavily on instinct and intuition. Admen like to believe they’re creative geniuses, gifted at truffling out social trends (which is why, they hasten to point out, they’re irreplaceable). Joe Pilotta, research VP for a firm called Big Research, suspects marketers cling to their belief in Influentials partly because they’re lazy. They love the idea of needing to reach only a small group of people to “tip” a product, he says with a laugh. Plus, it strokes their egos: “Think about it. You’re saying, ‘I am in control–I am the biggest influencer, because I am going to influence the influencers!’ It’s an arrogance that only the corporate world could enjoy.”

which certainly makes ME wonder to what extent what we know–or believe we know–about the nature of how marketing is supposed to work is actually based on the the egos of CMOs as opposed to on actual social theory. how about you?

see, i think all of coolhunting is a ridiculous waste of time. there is no universal “cool” that exists out of context, and while i do believe strongly that marketers themselves are NEVER the demo, i also think that all of us are subject to the context of the cultures or communities of which we are a part. translation: cool matters not because it’s “cool” but because–and only if–it’s culturally relevant. and while relevance sounds a lot less sexy than its mistaken-identity doppelganger, cool, it’s relevance that “trends” are really about.

Watts decided to put the whole idea to the test by building another Sims-like computer simulation. He programmed a group of 10,000 people, all governed by a few simple interpersonal rules. Each was able to communicate with anyone nearby. With every contact, each had a small probability of “infecting” another. And each person also paid attention to what was happening around him: If lots of other people were adopting a trend, he would be more likely to join, and vice versa. The “people” in the virtual society had varying amounts of sociability–some were more connected than others. Watts designated the top 10% most-connected as Influentials; they could affect four times as many people as the average Joe. In essence, it was a virtual society run–in a very crude fashion–according to the rules laid out by thinkers like Gladwell and Keller.

Watts set the test in motion by randomly picking one person as a trendsetter, then sat back to see if the trend would spread. He did so thousands of times in a row.

The results were deeply counterintuitive. The experiment did produce several hundred societywide infections. But in the large majority of cases, the cascade began with an average Joe (although in cases where an Influential touched off the trend, it spread much further). To stack the deck in favor of Influentials, Watts changed the simulation, making them 10 times more connected. Now they could infect 40 times more people than the average citizen (and again, when they kicked off a cascade, it was substantially larger). But the rank-and-file citizen was still far more likely to start a contagion.

Why didn’t the Influentials wield more power? With 40 times the reach of a normal person, why couldn’t they kick-start a trend every time? Watts believes this is because a trend’s success depends not on the person who starts it, but on how susceptible the society is overall to the trend–not how persuasive the early adopter is, but whether everyone else is easily persuaded. And in fact, when Watts tweaked his model to increase everyone’s odds of being infected, the number of trends skyrocketed.

i really like that phrase, so i’ll write it again: A trend’s success depends not on the person who starts it, but on how susceptible the society is overall to the trend–not how persuasive the early adopter is, but whether everyone else is easily persuaded.

we buy the brands, products, ideas, political candidates, etc., etc., we feel express aspects of our identities. a trend’s success depends not on how COOL it is, but on how effectively it manages to express a common-enough identity aspect. in other words, one way to look at the success of the trend that is “The Tipping Point” itself is that it has managed to express an identity aspect shared by a whole lot of marketers. not because it was cool, perhaps not even because it was RIGHT, but simply because it resonated with a particular–and particularly widespread–identity.

perhaps instead of building databases of “trend-spotters,” “brand evangelists,” “influencers” or whatever else those agencies that are so proud of themselves for getting to sit at the “cool kids” table want to call them, a more useful application of money would be to research the dynamics of our ability to BE influenced. and when i say “our” i mean all of us, marketers included. because, after all, being human helps in the process of figuring out how to communicate to other humans.

and maybe i read it wrong, but to me gladwell’s book wasn’t ever really about some people being blessed with the ability to start trends better than others, but rather some people being more curious, and thereby simply ending up in the way of more trends. consider how many more things an “early adopter” tries out that NEVER take off than the average person? they don’t necessarily help more stuff tip, they just try more shit out. what? were you expecting a different model? if so, maybe you should stop saying the word “viral” so much. that might aid a perspective shift:

Perhaps the problem with viral marketing is that the disease metaphor is misleading. Watts thinks trends are more like forest fires: There are thousands a year, but only a few become roaring monsters. That’s because in those rare situations, the landscape was ripe: sparse rain, dry woods, badly equipped fire departments. If these conditions exist, any old match will do. “And nobody,” Watts says wryly, “will go around talking about the exceptional properties of the spark that started the fire.”

so… “If influentials cannot tip a trend into existence–and if success in a networked society is quite random–what’s a poor marketer to do?” The article suggests that, “Since you can never know which person is going to spark the fire, you should aim the ad at as broad a market as possible–and not waste money chasing “important” people.” and while i agree with this, I think the “ultimate irony” proposed at the end of the article is misleading:

“If you really buy [Watts’s research], the most effective way to pitch your idea is … mass marketing. And that is precisely what the wizards of Madison Avenue, presiding over our zillion-channel microniche market, have rejected as obsolete. “

cultural relevance–especially in a networked society–is not entirely as random as watts’s algorithmic computer simulations, and simply broadcasting a message doesn’t make it more relevant, but there is no special group of cultural gate-keepers that get to decide what’s going to be relevant and what’s not.

“I think that all books like The Tipping Point or articles by academics can ever do is uncover a little piece of the bigger picture, and one day–when we put all those pieces together–maybe we’ll have a shot at the truth.”
– Malcom Gladwell

    



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by jenks

ashton kutcher christmas card

absolutely phenomenal:

    



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by jenks

does your music have a stock symbol?

If you ain’t never been to the ghetto
Don’t ever come to the ghetto
‘Cause you wouldn’t understand the ghetto
~ Naughty By Nature, “Ghetto Bastard”

used to be that if you were a musician the only way you could get ANY kind of significant distribution for your music was through a record label. cassettes and cds made it easier, but you were still at the mercy of the bureaucratic limits of physical distribution, and the price-tag for quality production was still insurmountable for most independent artists. when judged by the standard of the pro-quality sound and behemoth distribution bestowed upon label-produced music, independent options didn’t really compare.

(to make a long story short, i’m gonna skip over the way that punk and underground hiphop have functioned for the past several decades for the moment, and just flash forward to:) and then the internet came along, and all of that changed. not only could any dedicated producer get the pro music production software he (or she) needed for relatively cheap (or, you know, free), but the barriers for distribution got plowed down. you, as an unsigned, independent music producer–if you’re particularly talented–are now completely capable of producing music that sounds just as good as anything a label could create, and–if you’re particularly clever–that is disseminated damn fiercely.

and while all kinds of independent options were springing up like mushrooms after the online rain, and while tower records announced it was going out of business in october of 2006, just a month after wired’s “the rebirth of music” issue pointed out that the “music” industry had become simply the “plastic disc” industry, what also happened was that the music industry became a publicly traded industry.

you ever think about that?

that the major culture creation industry answers to shareholders every quarter–and i mean, ALL of it, not just the labels, the live concert promotion industry too–what that all means?

every business wants to make a profit, but when wall-street gets all up in this piece, it’s all just about making sure that stock is going up every quarter, and that means you can’t take long-range risks. a mainstream venue is no longer just a building, it’s an investment bank, and every band is valuated on their prior ticket sales track record. if you were paying attention, you noticed that in the course of this paragraph your saturday night concert ticket just became about that wallstreet stock ticker.

it’s a bit weird, huh?

there’s a lot of complaining that goes on about this situation, but personally, i think this is the best thing that could have ever happened as far as subcultures go.

since artists can now completely bypass labels and still grow a fanbase, this means that it’s possible for an act to be selling out underground parties from vancouver to san diego, and the publicly-traded music industry wouldn’t even KNOW they exist. it just became that much easier for communities to grow around music that has completely flown below the mainstream biz’s radar. and not just grow, but flourish. and then all of a sudden there’s a need for booking agents, managers, venues, labels, and of course, marketers too. all of it. the underground becomes a whole economy unto itself.

not that underground music is anything new by any means, but i think the degree to which this non-publicly traded music is now able to spread, and the extent to which the “underground economy” has the opportunity to expand, is completely unprecedented. by underground economy i don’t mean an illegal black market, i mean simply the economy that develops around independent culture creation. this isn’t people playing make-believe, waiting around, hoping to be “given a shot” by the majors. these are legitimate livelihoods, these are unmistakably careers, and what’s facilitating them shows no signs of slowing down.

over the course of the past year i’ve personally watched the mainstream and an underground start to collide on a business level, and i’ve been simultaneously in a front row seat on both sides of the battle line. i’ve seen major concert promoters cluelessly offer artists a tenth of what they easily command in their underground economy because they had no idea they were worth that much. i’ve seen underground producers get offered laughable deals that came from people thinking they are doing them some kind of favor. and i’m not even trying to be clever when i say that it just doesn’t seem to occur to them that musicians not represented by some kind publicly-traded entity would have anything better to do with their time. time is money everywhere, and money isn’t any less green in the underground economy, you know.

the whole thing reminds me of an eddie izzard routine about how england conquered the world with “the cunning use of flags.”

“That’s how you build an empire. Sail halfway around the world, stick a flag in. ‘I claim India for Britain.’

And they’re going, ‘You can’t claim us. We live here! There’s 500 million of us.’

Do you have a flag?

‘We don’t need a bloody flag, this is our country, you… bastard!’

No flag, no country. You can’t have one. That’s the rules…that…. I’ve just made up! ”

except the underground, now more than ever, very much does have a claim to its territory on the cultural landscape. and while the music industry continues to cut costs on its own product like it’s disposable, to the rest of the consumer goods industry underground culture is becoming an indispensable marketing tool.

a couple of months ago the wall street journal wrote:

At Nike, the drive to recruit under-the-radar influencers is on the rise and a key part of the company’s strategy.

Mr. Parker (Nike’s CEO) sees the challenge thusly: “The question is, how do you not let your size become a disadvantage? How do you keep an edge, a crispness, a relevance?”

Though far from mainstream, Mr. Cartoon rivals Nike’s high-profile jocks for influence among a certain crowd that is young, Latino and hip-hop. His ink-on-flesh flourishes are popular with rappers like Eminem and 50 Cent. Born Mark Machado, Mr. Cartoon has also written comic-book style graphic novels and created a brand called Joker to sell T-shirts and baseball caps with his designs. Nike’s Mr. Parker, who met Mr. Cartoon several years ago, calls him an “aesthetic influence and a friend.”

In addition to Mr. Cartoon, Mr. Parker has fostered Nike collaborations with a New York graffiti artist named Lenny Futura, the industrial designer Marc Newson and a pair of twin Brazilian muralists known as Os Gêmeos.

Following his own instincts, Mr. Parker has moved to aggressively link Nike with those who can help maintain the company’s standing among what he calls the “influencers of influencers.”

“I have a personal interest in popular culture and the influence of culture on the consumer landscape,” says Mr. Parker.

funny…didn’t that used to be what the music industry used to be interested in? i could have sworn….

so the music industry stopped being about culture and became about product, and the product industry became about culture. major labels started treating underground artists like they were doing them a favor by even deigning to acknowledge their existence while major brands have started seeking to develop partnerships with them. well, i didn’t just make up these rules, but it sure does seem to have gotten all turned around, doesn’t it?

    



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by jenks

“in your eyes”

and in the same breath as the last post… here’s a plug for the kucoon designs fashion show/party this saturday:

shows are at:
11:30 – kama and caylee
12:15 – kucoon designs

come get your independent fashion fix.

you know you wanna.

    



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by jenks

quantum marketing

i’ll admit right now that this is not what i ought to be writing about.

i’ve been travelling for more of the past month than i’ve been at home, and just coming up with things to write about that i had no time to follow through on. so now that i’ve finally gotten to shower in my own shower, and sleep in my own bed, and the chance to unwind, there’s really so much else that i’d like to write about other than this.

like…. i’d like to give the ad age article, “Dove Viral Draws Heat From Critics” the “STOP SAYING THE WORD VIRAL!” award.

while i’m at it, i’d like to write about how “cool-hunting” ought to be stopped too. and not the thing where brands support emerging artists and underground communities to develop relevant, authentic consumer relationships, but that whole ridiculous concept that “cool” can exist out of context, like some kind creme to be skimmed off the top of one homogenized, pasteurized mass culture.

i’d like to write a post each for like a dozen different sound-bytes that come out of alex bogusky’s mouth during the course of these interviews: 1 + 2 (it’s like a full semester of jedi grad school in the course of an hour.) i’d like to thank john drake for turning me on the existence of these videos–thanks john!

i’d like to write alex bogusky an email asking if it’s by choice or by chance that he doesn’t have a wikipedia entry to hyperlink his name to. (altho i could maybe think of a couple of other questions i’d like to ask too.)

instead what i’m writing about now is NONE of that. i’m writing about the funniest thing i saw yesterday, which happens to have been on a party flyer:

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“$15 at the door. 30 in costume. leave the playa in nevada.”

since apparel is one of the easiest mediums through which to fulfil burningman’s “radical self expression” tenet, it’s been a big deal among parties in the burningman scene to encourage attendees to dress up. for years party flyers have advertised that if you were down with costumery you’d get a discount, and if you arrived in “street clothes” you’d have to pay an exacerbated fee at the door. “playa” by the way, is the term used to refer to the dried up lake-bed in the nevada desert on which burningman is held.

the initial idea in encouraging “playa-wear,” i suppose, was about developing a certain immersive atmosphere at the events. it’s kind of like if you’re into society for creative anachronism type stuff, where you recreate medieval battles on the weekend or whatever, then it kind of kills the whole point if people don’t show up wearing period garb, wandering onto the battlefield in track suits or something. the (re)creation of that other time and place is what everyone is there for, and it only works if everyone participates in the process.

of course burningman, like any other subculture, has its own dress codes and aesthetic mores, and after a while what all those flyers were actually saying was that the admission was $15 higher if you weren’t wearing the UNIFORM rather than if you weren’t wearing a “costume.” to people that didn’t get the memo about what the burningman uniform is supposed to consist of, or for whom costumery is not really their mode of expression, the insistent empahsis on it is incredibly alienating, and to people that aren’t interested in uniforms in general (or this one in particular), it’s pretty frustrating.

the joke on this flyer is that it’s turned the whole thing around, and even come up with a brilliantly catchy slogan for the resistance.

which, of course, reminds me of something alex bogusky talked about in that interview….

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(oh, if you’d watched those videos you’d know there’s no way i could just spend a whole post not talking about anything he says in there.)

so at one point he talks about this mini cooper campaign that cpb did for the car’s US launch. they bought a bunch of billboards announcing, “the suv backlash officially starts now.”

except that this was 2002, this was pre-inconvenient truth, and there WAS no SUV backlash. they needed it in order to have a way to market a small car for being exactly what it was, a small car, so they created it!

and the crazy part is that then it became real!

whether it was sheer luck, or intense prescience, or some kind of more formal consumer insight investigation, that the message worked–and by “worked” i mean, that it really DID herald the start of the SUV backlash in addition to making mini coopers sell–is because there was indeed an anti gass-guzzler movement brewing. before al gore pushed “green” over the tipping point, however, even a relatively small message like this could speak for an audience that was ready for the backlash to start.

in the interview alex mentions that advertising, and, hey, lets be real, ad agencies, have the capacity to influence pop culture through brands. or…. wait, is it brands have the capacity to influence pop culture through advertising? or is it through ad agencies? well, whichever way it is, the bottom line is that the most powerful influence comes from the capacity to articulate something that is already brewing below the surface. it’s like how quantum particles can be affected through simply being observed, so pop culture movements can be influenced by being given expression…..

wow:

“quantum marketing.” (there’s a concept).

perhaps that flyer for the party on friday will herald the start of the costume-mandate backlash? i’ve been repeating “leave the playa in nevada” to everyone since i saw it. the wait for a clever slogan officially ends now (thanks, mike).

    



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