This series of posts is an introduction to how brands can convert digital strategies and tactics into manageable, measurable and sustainable consumer Intimacy, Advocacy and Amplification.
The overall dynamic – when we get it right – is about taking content and brand “Behind The Line” into tribal and viral media, and ensuring that a meaningful, sustainable dialogue with - and between - consumers and their tribes is ignited and managed forwards.
Let’s put this in some context.
Today, our sense of who we are, and our ways of making sense of the world, increasingly gravitate to People Like Us.
Trust in church, state and commerce have dropped dramatically in 15 years, in parallel with a huge surge in consumer to consumer (C2C) communications;
Especially among premium brands, permissions for brands are mediated and controlled by consumer tribes, while premium value is both conferred and driven up by acceptance and C2C messaging between tribal consumers.
Today, with so many compelling and free experiences being instantly available to the aspirational, connected consumer, smart brands seek to understand the experiences and lifestyle meaning these consumers find in their tribes …
… recognising that new type of value, and finding ways of significantly enhancing it with brand-relevant services, and being powerfully rewarded with networked approval and positive buzz.
Where previously the isolated consumer was the “final destination” or end-point of brand communications, now, remarkably, the tribal networked consumer is becoming a departure point for “direct to tribe to consumer” communications.
Brand messaging is carried to hitherto hard-to-reach locations, both into and across tribes of consumers: access, permissions and precious intimacy can turn into highly valuable advocacy and amplification.
The brand plays a critical but still partially understood role here, as a facilitator of the dramatically different new consumer experiences that the digital revolution has enabled.
When we make these socially aspirational consumers happy, we both equip and motivate them to share their stories – with our brands riding along in the slipstream – into, across and beyond the networked tribes.
Freely available media tools such as YouTube, and the very social networks within which these identities and narratives are enacted day-to-day, provide the means of very effective and economical production and distribution for all this positive brand energy.
So … it’s in recognising, supporting and enhancing this entirely modern new cultural process that the most powerful opportunities for brand value, access to the tribal consumer, and permissions to meaningfully and intimately engage, lie.
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