Comments on: The Spectacle Is Everywhere

By: Charles Frith

Charles Frith — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 10:16:06 +0000

I’d like to chip in with this comment that I’ve left on your blog and also Seans. I hope you don’t mind.
Yes engagement is a part of a relationship and the love metaphor is a bloody marvelous one when thinking about relationship with brands.
The idea that we as people should be wedded to a brand or have a permanent break up is the sort of marketing nonsense that overbearing clients construct around themselves to cushion against the reality (for it is one), that 73% (I made that up) of products or services are on parity. That doesn’t mean there are other variables that can provide differentiation, (proper) values for instance are often difficult to quantify.
If only we could get used to more layers of relationship such as; brand lust, promiscuity, infatuation, indifference, going steady, on-off on-off and maybe even bliss or arranged marriages is something I’ve put forward to multinational brands as a way of navigating through potential phases of relationship when thinking about engaging.
Alas the average marketing manager immersed in a set of tenuous values and synthetically evolved marketing language is unable (often through hierarchical, position tenure and promotional pressure) to entertain the thought that our customers may well be up for a bit of brand adultery.
I think this was best captured by an agency I worked with a few years ago who came up with the line: Pot Noodle, The Slag of All Snacks.
A slag is English vernacular for a woman of ill repute. Professional or not
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hhcl
The ad is always worth viewing over here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_6GGDhHzKI

By: gianandrea

gianandrea — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 06:46:42 +0000

gavin, sooner or later all the hype words we use (community, engagement, web 2.0, blog, viral) come under discussion. is that we need to set a further step in our environment? or is just that we need, time to time, to re-define our dictionary to see if these words still have the same meaning they used to have?

By: Gavin Heaton

Gavin Heaton — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 03:08:44 +0000

Cam … I agree — imagine what they will say when you talk about “blogs”. It will be like saying “black and white television”.
Matt … absolutely correct! It is about being a cocreator of the spectacle. Nice one.
Nat … thanks — I am often the creator of my own spectacle (not always in a good way).

By: Nat@Nudge

Nat@Nudge — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 01:43:13 +0000

Nice Post Gav – we certainly need to challenge these concepts (sacred ducks) more often!
Matt
I love what you wrote. Have not g=heard it expressed better.
That should be plastered on the wall of every organisation, marketer’s office and ad agency – to remind us all what we are doing. We, as marketers want brands (because that’s our world) – but “we” as consumers want “our own spectacle”.
awesome! cheers

By: Matt Moore

Matt Moore — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 01:29:35 +0000

Gav – like it. Three comments.
1. I don’t want brands to transform by experiences, I want them to allow me to transform my own.
2. I want brands in the background not the foreground of the conversation I have with or about an organisation.
3. Debord claimed there was no revolutionary act that could not be recuperated by the spectacle. Grant Morrison counterclaimed there’s no recuperation, only feedback.
I don’t want their spectacle, I want my own…

By: Cam Beck

Cam Beck — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 19:04:52 +0000

Nice post, Gav… It’s probably true that “engagement” is a milestone for now, but our goal should be for individual engagement to be our minimum default state.
Thirty years from now, I want to be a grandpa telling my grandkids how good they have it, and how back in my day we had to go through so many layers of corporate and government bureaucracy to get the answers we sought and the products we needed… and I want them to look at me as if I were absolutely nuts.