Digital Delta. Herlander Elias
because their users have not yet become saturated with marketing messages” (Economist, 2015, para.9).
Therefore, the secret is the platforms. The brand world access to platforms and the way they provide the audience of user-consumers access to these vey platforms is the key to understand how in a media saturated world, filled with visual pollution, people notice the brand world‘s messages. Yet there is something more. The brand world is selling ideas and concepts, even the brand world itself owns less and less things, unlike corporations from the previous century. Morgan, for instance, notices that:
“Business is changing. The world’s largest taxi company owns no taxis (Uber), the largest accommodation provider owns no real estate (Airbnb), the most popular media owner creates no content (Facebook), the largest telecom operator owns no telecom infrastructure (Skype and WeChat), the world’s largest software vendors don’t write the apps (Apple and Google) and the world’s largest movie house owns no cinemas (Netflix). As you can see sometimes the value is getting out of the way—and being the conduit” (2013).
So, if user-consumers are incited to log in and to not owning things, and if brands are just to sell access and own less things too, what are we all consuming at once? The answer is “ideas”, concepts. And this explains why the mass media created the mass society, which were relying on industrial production and product manufacture. Once the digital media came in, the audience changed, because this is a post-industrial crowd. The very notion of “audience” faced a twist:
“… ‘the audience’ has transmogrified into ‘the user,’ and industrial-era, one-way, mass communication has added to its broad social reach a mode best described as dialogic, demotic, and DIY/DIWO (do it yourself/do it with others)” (Hartley, 2012, 8).
This way, the brand world is dealing with a crowd of user-consumers, based on a dialogic imperative. Everything is a conversation, mobile, fast, agile and the brand world and the digital media just work. It is a kind of performative media, shall we say. For Hartley in this situation there is “a model of communication in which everyone is a producer” (2012, 3). Should we remind Toffler’s ideas about the “prosumer” and it all starts to make sense. It means that the very core of this digital delta between brands, media and people is relying on a multiplication of production ― when once there were specific producers now everybody is a producer and each other’s audience. For Douglas Rushkoff the explanation is behind the twentieth century’s most iconic institution: the corporation as a global entity. He believes in a group of principles. In his words:
“There were three main stages in the evolution of the corporation, and each one further imprinted corporatism on the collective human psyche. The corporation was born in the Renaissance, granted personhood in post-Civil War America, and then, in the twentieth century, branded as the benevolent guardian and savior of humankind” (2009, 12).
And here we notice that if before, in our discussion, the authors were pointing out that the brand world wants to be the center of our universe, now Rushkoff assures that the corporation was branded as being a guardian, a benevolent savior. The problem is that the corporation is an entity we have designed. He continues, saying:
“The corporation is a significant but invented institution ― and the impact of its invention on our relationship to one another and the world around us was as significant as the invention of an abstract God. For while it might be said that the invention of monotheism purposefully disconnected us from the forces of nature, the invention of the corporation purposefully disconnected us from one another. And while religious institutions and mythologies may have dominated the social, political, and economic landscapes for the first thousand or so years of civilization, it’s corporations and their mythologies that direct human activity today” (Rushkoff, 2009, 23).
Now, when we connect the dots it makes sense. These inventions, these corporations, are replacing society’s mythologies with their brand worlds. They are imposing an artificial view of life and occupying a space previously dominated by the master grand narratives of politics, religion and culture. In this context, what does the brand world has that makes us, user-consumers, drive towards it? How have these corporations, these establishments, expanded so much that people regard the brands as cults? And how, in fact, can we all become a cult brand specially in the age of social media? Well, according to Bueno & Jeffrey, there are a lot of rules, but we will stick to rule number 2 and 3:
“Rule #2: Be Courageous
Even in the face of doubters and critics, Cult Brands dare to be different—and succeed. Cult Brands are successful because they are wholly unlike every other company in the marketplace.
Cult Brands believe in themselves, their products and services, and their customers” (2014, para.16-18).
Now, when a corporation shows a brand world that has dynamics, unity and a vision in which they believe, they sort of force us to follow them. But there is more up to it:
“Rule #3: Promote a Lifestyle
Cult Brands sell more than a product or a service. Customers want more than just things; they are seeking experiences.
Experiential purchases are more meaningful than material purchases. As such, all Cult Brands sell lifestyles. They develop and sell ‘the tools’ that help their customers pursue their dreams and celebrate distinct lifestyles.
Cult Brands remove barriers for their customers. The would-be musician no longer needs to shell out thousands of dollars for expensive instruments and equipment. They just need to download the right apps onto their iPad, and they’re ready to rock.
Apple promotes a creative lifestyle that facilitate self-expression. Jimmy Buffett celebrates life as a party. The Life is good Company promotes a laid-back weekend BBQ with friends.
Your customers have aspirations. Those aspirations are powered by emotions. If you can support your customers in the realization of their aspirations, they will associate their positive emotions with your business” (Bueno & Jeffrey, 2014, para.21-26).
In sum, lifestyles are the key to live the concepts that should be and adventure. Corporations and their brand worlds want us to associate our creative insights with their tools. They are becoming the means
for us to reach happiness. What drives us is the feeling of accomplishment and “change”― the second element of the “digital delta”. We seek the brand’s services and products that in fact help us out to achieve our goals, the way Apple and Nike do. The brand worlds that will succeed will have a tier of features. In the words of Deborah Chae & Andy Bateman:
“So brands that are going to be successful are those that are going to have engaging, rich, interesting things to say. (...) Those seven rules again: ceding control, community participation, fostering real dialogue, focusing on core competencies, having good ideas and having and maintaining current and engaging content. These are the equity levers that are newly available to brands that leverage technology” (apud Meyers & Gerstman, 2001, 74).
Technology, or mostly digital media, are enabling brand worlds to reach easily more user-consumers. Also, happy user-consumers tend to stay more comfortable within the corporation’s walled gardens. Why leave? There is everything we need in the brand worlds’ ecosystems. So the technology aspect is key here for it allows us to connect between each other and thus with the brand world‘s vision of the future, even if we do not know there is a better way to do things differently. For Deborah Chae & Andy Bateman “It is so profoundly different from the physical world as to warrant a new role for brands, new ways to brand, and therefore a piece of code to represent the new era for brands ― e-branding” (apud Meyers & Gerstman, 2001, 70). This instance of e-branding is following us as we consume mostly brand worlds that have a strong digital presence on their own. We are talking here about the fusion of cyberspace with the corporation, the user with the consumer, the media and the brands. The result is a process of change in which we stand in the center of the universe for brand worlds that care about us. They have developed us as their favorite public audience.
Deborah Chae