Social Media, Apple

My latest column in Advertising Age reaffirmed a phenomenon I've seen for a while now: the topic most marketers want to talk about is social media. Praising or deriding Apple comes in a close second.

Everything else just doesn't matter. It could be a small, easy example from the endless list of other marketing tactics, or a single, bigger, complicated question about culture at large, and it won't warrant much attention or emotion...unless it can be distilled within the social media kettle. I can offer up the last few years of my blog posts (500+) and columns for AdAge (50+) as quantitative proof of my observation: essays about social media generate 3x or more comments and far more forwards than essays about anything else.

A similar phenomenon exists for stories (and conference presentations) about Apple, which seems to move everyone to wax poetic about its mastery of branding.

Both topics are getting old, aren't they? The funny thing is that neither topic is old at all, at least when it comes to conclusions.

The very premises underlying the what and why of online social engagement are still very much unproven theory, and much of it quite radically counterintuitive, yet because the technological what is so digitally obvious the latter gets confused with the former. Apple is such an outlier example of a great brand (Harley Davidson being a close, though tarnished second) that whatever it might reveal about marketing communications is obfuscated with product design, services offered, and a host of other qualities that make conclusions about its brand anything but conclusive or directionally followable.

But here's what happens when either topic gets repeatedly floated in articles or blog posts: after a while, the online conversations get tiring, irrespective of what they've resolved, if anything. The cases are closed because competing viewpoints have stated their positions innumerable times; the remaining differences must be the result of the debaters backgrounds, biases, or other proclivities. The problems have been solved.

No they haven't.

This is certainly the case when it comes to talking about social media theology, as I tried to do in my recent AdAge piece; probably four-fifths of them took a "side" and repeated the same stuff that’s been repeated so many times before. Social media are wonderful. Social media are terrible. Yet my intention was to raise the possibility that we might not be able to tell the difference, and that instead we were repeating the same opinions about brand advertising that folks debated 50 years ago. The remaining few comments derided me for daring to pose such a possibility.

Have we really proclaimed our beliefs enough to warrant the end of any debate? Is frequency trumps substance the real message of online engagement? It maybe well be so considering the content of so many social marketing campaigns these days.

Ditto goes for any so-called conversations about Apple. Jobs is a genius or he's a manipulative monster. The brand is a huge success or a horrible lie. Nobody changes their opinions but everyone wants to repeat them, at least until the repetition starts to feel boring or old...at which point the debate is considered resolved.

What would be truly new? How about actually talking about things vs. griping over past litanies of declarations that haven't convinced anybody of anything? Repetition isn't persuasive unless you're trying to brainwash someone, and most folks opt-out from anger or boredom long before they risk having their brains turned to Play Doh.

There has to be a basis for analyzing social phenomenon other than propagating hopefully entertaining campaigns at consumers and then asking them if they were entertained. People repeat what they've been told, generally speaking, and this has been true since long before the Internet was invented; tell 'em that the sky is falling down and then poll their opinions about the sky, and the most likely response will be that it's falling. Many of our conclusions about social efficacy are nothing more than self-fulfilling prophecies.

As for Apple, I've simply taken to never talking about the brand, and if I'm sitting in a presentation in which it comes up I pretty much shut down. The cliche is "“when you own a hammer all the world's problems look like nails," and I think it's particularly applicable to marketers and their perspectives on Apple. It would be really interesting to talk about the business sans the ads and packaging, and come to some conclusions about the operational component of the branding. Maybe ban the "m" and "b" words altogether?

But if you want traffic to your articles or blog posts, just keep writing about this stuff. Doesn't really matter what you say, since there's no discussion going on. Just lots of conversation.

(Image credit: From a really great essay about Ping by Erik Sherman at bnet.com)

Comments

[Jonathan]

LOL, no, crediting them is making the point conversationally relevant. I actually think there's nothing new under the sun. Every 20th century band was simply copying methodologies of creation and sharing of marching bands and player pianos who, in turn, had copied their models from prior eras. The changing media is the distraction from the never-changing message.

I wrote a book about it: http://www.amazon.com/Histories-Social-Media-Jonathan-Baskin/dp/0982700423/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1290210209&sr=1-1

[Dude]

Re: Dead copying

Phish came close to *replicating* the model. String Cheese Incident band as well. You could cast Gov't Mule and perhaps Neil Young/Crazyhorse, and even the iterations of Bob Dylan & Band (circ: 1999-2003) into this band following (see: www.boblinks.com). But to say that these groups "created" a model is naive. The medium was the massage (see: McLuhan, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Medium_Is_the_Massage_%28book%29_) not the other way around.

[Waleed Raza]

Yes This Is So True.

[Jonathan]

Minter, I couldn't agree more with you: Apple's brilliance is in how it links software, hardware, and content into seamless (mostly) experiential media. That's why every marketer who tries to emulate the ads, box design, stores, etc. is simply missing the boat entirely. I agree that what Apple is accomplishing evidences a far greater potential for businesses in the future.

Your mention of the Grateful Dead is spot on, too: I am pained to name a band that has come even close to copying the Dead's model, though directionally there is much to learn about how they approached their brand (live events, steady stream of new content, encouraging sharing, etc.). I wish I saw more about them in marketing presentations (and less about Apple or Harley Davidson)!

JSB

[Minter Dial]

Successful companies in social media -- much like Apple itself -- are outliers (at least today) and I would agree that it is highly difficult to copy/paste the keys to success. Marketers quickly seek to extract best practices from these successful social media companies, yet misunderstand that it is not what they are doing, but how they do it and how they are organised internally that renders their social media successful.

As far as Apple is concerned, I am a relatively recently converted fanatic (my wife worked for them for five years in the 1990s). That said, what fascinates me most has been their ability to transform themselves from a manufacturer into media. To the extent that everything will be connected (ie with access to the internet) in the future, it is relatively easy to imagine other companies in other categories taking their lead. As such, you can imagine how cars, fridges and mirrors will become media.

As an alternative #2, I would rather refer to the (as yet) untarnished brand of the Grateful Dead rather than Harley Davidson -- albeit they share a common past (in part). The Dead have created another completely unique and unreproducible "model"…

Some food for thought from Paris, Minter

[Jonathan]

So true, Nir. My point is just that...Apple is almost an exception vs. a model that is easily followable, and so much of its brand success has nothing to do with the tactics most marketers talk about these days.

[Nir Kossovsky]

JSB.
In fairness, Apple Inc. is iconic in many ways. That is why the company was the subject for a Mission:Intangible blog last week on the financial benefits of a superior reputation: http://www.iafinance.org/_blog/MISSION_INTANGIBLE/post/Apple_Teacher%E2%80%99s_pet/
Cheers,
Nir