As the pinnacle of traditional mass media, the television is the epitome of the one-to-many communication model that has enabled advertisers to produce and deliver static messages to a captive audience of millions worldwide. However, much to the dismay of many in the advertising world, this model’s heyday has come and gone as the proliferation of digital media and the Internet over the past two decades has led to drastic changes to our media consumption habits.
The spread of internet-enabled technology has empowered the masses to become media producers themselves, uploading more videos, photos and blog posts per day than traditional media houses could possibly envisage across an entire operating lifespan (MBAonline, 2012). Furthermore, beyond simply shifting the power of production, the internet has reinvigorated the sense of community and social participation by means of its global peer-to-peer conversations. Resultantly consumers are producing media and contributing to the world around them as ‘citizen audiences’, contributing their knowledge and skills to fields such as journalism, public relations, games and advertising – for example, the effect ‘citizen journalism’ has had on cable news networks, who now source breaking news from Twitter.
No longer a captive audience, consumers are now seeking to interact and engage in many-to-many conversations with both each other and brands. Faced with this new participatory culture, the static brand communication of traditional media is no longer deemed to be sufficient, with modern media users requiring an interactive and engaging brand pull towards ‘citizen advertising’ – invitation to participate in the brand story and experience, and to become part of the brand community. This ‘pull’ has been described by Mark Bonchek (2012) as bringing consumers into “orbit” around a brand through the production of content that offers value, utility, community and engagement.
Today’s technologically empowered consumers have skills and knowledge that they wish to share with the world around them, organically producing professional quality content. Lowering the external brand barriers, consumers can be given the freedom to take the brand story and experience into their own hands and create the branded content they wish to consume – be it a parody of an advertisement, the continuation of a campaign story or the development of something completely new. This is not a brand initiated and highly controlled campaign, or a co-design like mass customization, but “freely created personal brand meaning” (Burmann, 2010) by consumers, with as much importance to the brand media sphere as brand created touchpoints.
Consumer collaboration sees individuals advertising to each other in a many-to-many conversation (e.g. Ford Social – a site designed to allow Ford users to share their Ford-related stories). Whilst this may seem to be a loss of control by the brand, clients and agencies must be willing to let go of their highly guarded brand story to enable their loyal consumers the freedom to become highly involved and engaged, and therefore undergo more cognitive and active brand learning. A full loss of control is of course not desirable, however a managed and structured freedom – like that of Wikipedia – will ensure that the brand not be ambushed and that activity be in good spirit and in line with the brand’s best interests.
Alongside consumer collaboration, changes in technology and media consumption are altering brand storytelling, as the hyperlinked nature of modern information sharing provides opportunities for dynamic storytelling. Here brands can establish an overarching story driven in a non-linear fashion by consumers, who are immersed in the brand experience. Collaborative content and participation enrich and drive the continuation of the brand story, rewarding the sense of belonging to the brand community.
Such participatory storytelling can be seen across film, TV and the game industry in franchises such as Star Wars, Star Trek, and Pokémon. Each has created its own expansive universe and directly or indirectly invited fans to create their own stories within these worlds, either adding to the brand created stories or developing their own unique tales. Such engaging and dynamic storytelling has come about through both brand-mediated experiences, such as a video game, and entirely fan-created experiences, such as cosplay or fan-fiction (Rose, 2011).
Given the possibilities displayed in similar industries, it would not be out of the question from brands to expand their stories to create a brand universe that consumers could inhabit and make their own. Within even today’s typical marketing material, brand perceptions are co-created by marketing communication and consumers’ emotional responses, where consumers add their own meaning to a brand story. It would therefore not be that great a step up to create the Star Wars of branding. However, such dynamic storytelling opportunities would best suited to experiential and lifestyle brands that are prone to generating a loyal and fanatic followers or fans, as well as brands with culturally relevant purposes, brand stories and/or brand experiences.
Bonchek, M. (2012, March 5). How top brands pull customers into orbit. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved fromhttp://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/03/how_top_brands_pull_customers.html
Burmann, C. (2010). Editorial: A call for user generated branding. Journal of Brand Management, 18(1), 1-4.
MBAonline (2012). A Day in the Internet. Retrieved from http://www.mbaonline.com/a-day-in-the-internet/
Rose, F. (2011). The Art of Immersion. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company.