Motivation

There are new things happening. Information transmission is increasing and the cathedral of mass media now has coffee shops in the congregation and a bazaar on the grounds. There is a hum of creation and sharing – a groove, like culture is jazz to be played and riffed on. Ad hoc communities are forming about nodes of group definition and forming reservoirs of knowledge and expertise. Trajectories of meaning and precedent are being altered by their mass, their gravity.

These new constellations strongly impact on marketing and communications. The number of media impressions per person per day is skyrocketing and the resources being employed in their promotion is astronomical.

Those of us working in communications see the rise in power of the audience. Intelligence and opinion are legion and the voice of an individual – well-placed and smartly delivered – can alter the perceptions of millions.

At the same time we see increasing concentration of ownership in the industry, massive conglomerations of design, brand management, public relations and media purchasing. The craft of marrying emotion and commodity in symbol is increasingly sophisticated.

And still popular literacy for this strange semiotics is a red queen stalking increasingly chimerical marketing campaigns, multi-channeled and micro-targeted. Consumers are embracing the relationships with their commodities as represented by their brands, engaging them. The ownership of the symbol in legal terms has not changed, but is socially contested ground and those companies who fight it risk alienating those who believe most fervently. Push marketing is becoming a dance and brand crafters are looking to their brand communities, internal (employees) and external (consumers), to define, evolve, embrace and advocate for the brand.

It is the rise of brand culture. It’s an interesting time to work in communications. I will write here about the things I am learning and seeing.