Marketing – Samenvatting reader
LES 1
Branding in the Age of Social Media
Introduction
• As a central feature of their digital strategy, companies made huge bets on
what is often called branded content.
• The thinking went like this: Social media would allow your company to
leapfrog traditional media and forge relationships directly with customers. If
you told them great stories and connected with them in real time, your brand
would become a hub for a community of consumers.
• Yet few brands have generated meaningful consumer interest online.
• Social media seems to have made brands less significant.
Þ brands succeed when they break through in culture.
Þ branding is a set of techniques designed to generate cultural relevance.
Þ Crowdculture changes the rules of branding—which techniques work and
which do not. If we understand crowdculture, then, we can figure out why
branded-content strategies have fallen flat—and what alternative
branding methods are empowered by social media.
• Idea in brief:
Þ Context
• Companies have sunk billions of dollars into producing content on
social media, hoping to build audiences around their brands. But
consumers haven’t shown up
Þ What went wrong
• Social media has transformed how culture works. Digital crowds have
become powerful cultural innovators—a new phenomenon called
crowdculture. They’re now so effective at producing creative
entertainment that it’s impossible for companies to compete.
Þ The way forward
• While crowdculture has deflated conventional branding models, it
actually makes an alternative model—cultural branding—even more
powerful. In this approach, brands collaborate with crowdcultures
and champion their ideologies in the marketplace.
Why Branded Content and Sponsorships Used to Work
• While promoters insist that branded content is a hot new thing, it’s actually a
relic of the mass media age that has been repackaged as a digital concept.
1
, • companies borrowed approaches from popular entertainment to make their
brands famous -> by amusing audiences.
Þ This early form of branded content worked well because the
entertainment media were oligopolies, so cultural competition was
limited
Þ Consumer marketing companies could buy their way to fame by paying to
place their brands in this tightly controlled cultural arena.
• Brands also infiltrated culture by sponsoring TV shows and events, attaching
themselves to successful content.
• The rise of new technologies that allowed audiences to opt out of ads—from
cable networks to DVRs and then the internet—made it much harder for
brands to buy fame
Þ they had to compete directly with real entertainment
Þ BMW pioneered the practice of creating short films for the internet
• top film directors and pushing for ever-more-spectacular special
effects and production values
Þ Thus was born the great push toward branded content. But its champions
weren’t counting on new competition. And this time it came not from big
media companies but from the crowd.
The Rise of Crowdculture
• Historically, cultural innovation flowed from the margins of society
Þ Companies and the mass media acted as intermediaries, diffusing these
new ideas into the mass market. But social media has changed everything.
• Social media binds together communities that once were geographically
isolated, greatly increasing the pace and intensity of collaboration.
• Amplified subcultures
Þ Today you’ll find a flourishing crowdculture around almost any topic
Þ Social media has expanded and democratized these subcultures. With a
few clicks, you can jump into the center of any subculture
Þ With the rise of crowdculture, cultural innovators and their early adopter
markets have become one and the same.
• Turbocharged art worlds
Þ Producing innovative popular entertainment requires a distinctive mode
of organization—what sociologists call an art world
Þ The collective efforts of participants in these “scenes” often generate
major creative breakthroughs
Þ Crowdculture has turbocharged art worlds, vastly increasing the number
of participants and the speed and quality of their interactions. No longer
do you need to be part of a local scene; no longer do you need to work for
a year to get funding and distribution for your short film.
2
LES 1
Branding in the Age of Social Media
Introduction
• As a central feature of their digital strategy, companies made huge bets on
what is often called branded content.
• The thinking went like this: Social media would allow your company to
leapfrog traditional media and forge relationships directly with customers. If
you told them great stories and connected with them in real time, your brand
would become a hub for a community of consumers.
• Yet few brands have generated meaningful consumer interest online.
• Social media seems to have made brands less significant.
Þ brands succeed when they break through in culture.
Þ branding is a set of techniques designed to generate cultural relevance.
Þ Crowdculture changes the rules of branding—which techniques work and
which do not. If we understand crowdculture, then, we can figure out why
branded-content strategies have fallen flat—and what alternative
branding methods are empowered by social media.
• Idea in brief:
Þ Context
• Companies have sunk billions of dollars into producing content on
social media, hoping to build audiences around their brands. But
consumers haven’t shown up
Þ What went wrong
• Social media has transformed how culture works. Digital crowds have
become powerful cultural innovators—a new phenomenon called
crowdculture. They’re now so effective at producing creative
entertainment that it’s impossible for companies to compete.
Þ The way forward
• While crowdculture has deflated conventional branding models, it
actually makes an alternative model—cultural branding—even more
powerful. In this approach, brands collaborate with crowdcultures
and champion their ideologies in the marketplace.
Why Branded Content and Sponsorships Used to Work
• While promoters insist that branded content is a hot new thing, it’s actually a
relic of the mass media age that has been repackaged as a digital concept.
1
, • companies borrowed approaches from popular entertainment to make their
brands famous -> by amusing audiences.
Þ This early form of branded content worked well because the
entertainment media were oligopolies, so cultural competition was
limited
Þ Consumer marketing companies could buy their way to fame by paying to
place their brands in this tightly controlled cultural arena.
• Brands also infiltrated culture by sponsoring TV shows and events, attaching
themselves to successful content.
• The rise of new technologies that allowed audiences to opt out of ads—from
cable networks to DVRs and then the internet—made it much harder for
brands to buy fame
Þ they had to compete directly with real entertainment
Þ BMW pioneered the practice of creating short films for the internet
• top film directors and pushing for ever-more-spectacular special
effects and production values
Þ Thus was born the great push toward branded content. But its champions
weren’t counting on new competition. And this time it came not from big
media companies but from the crowd.
The Rise of Crowdculture
• Historically, cultural innovation flowed from the margins of society
Þ Companies and the mass media acted as intermediaries, diffusing these
new ideas into the mass market. But social media has changed everything.
• Social media binds together communities that once were geographically
isolated, greatly increasing the pace and intensity of collaboration.
• Amplified subcultures
Þ Today you’ll find a flourishing crowdculture around almost any topic
Þ Social media has expanded and democratized these subcultures. With a
few clicks, you can jump into the center of any subculture
Þ With the rise of crowdculture, cultural innovators and their early adopter
markets have become one and the same.
• Turbocharged art worlds
Þ Producing innovative popular entertainment requires a distinctive mode
of organization—what sociologists call an art world
Þ The collective efforts of participants in these “scenes” often generate
major creative breakthroughs
Þ Crowdculture has turbocharged art worlds, vastly increasing the number
of participants and the speed and quality of their interactions. No longer
do you need to be part of a local scene; no longer do you need to work for
a year to get funding and distribution for your short film.
2
