to. wa.- walking on the insight road (and not halfway there).

I’m not usually one to hang around much LinkedIn group discussions. However, yesterday, I saw a German planner stating her increasing interest in ethnography and asking about methods for  ’getting to know and really understand the target groups and their tribes’. In our not exactly trend- and buzzword resistant industry it is very trendy to talk about culture and anthropology at the moment. However, the methods used are often desktop research (PSFK, TrendHunter, Springwise) and maybe qualitative interviews. That’s why I thought I’d chip in. I changed it a bit, but this is roughly what I posted.

In methodology, they usually distinguish three approaches. One is called Ethnography Proper, which often means years or at least months in the field, observing and studying. Ritson & Elliot’s paper about the social uses of advertising describes an approach like that. In our industry, I think what Ruby Pseudo does goes into this direction as well. You could of course argue that this is what real planning is supposed to do. Life as a huge field work project. Equipped with a notebook, spending time with people, chatting observing, interpreting and so on.

Then there’s what they call ‘accumulated ethnographic miniatures’, which are basically a serios of shorter stays in the field, interviews in the life world of the group of people you’re interested in, the collection of data by observing and the iterative thematisation of the collected data. Grant McCracken, without calling out the methods, talks a lot about this in his book Flock and Flow. Wieden+Kennedy Shanghai’s Boomtown Stories could also be mentioned. I think they have also cases in Doing Anthropology in Consumer Research. This is probably a more realistic approach towards using ethnography in planning. You unfortunately can’t really spend weeks and weeks with people, can you?

And then there’s of course virtual ethnography, observing and interpreting comments and conversations online (Andreea Nastase’s dissertation about GHD and transmedia planning touched upon this). Huge potential, but while it might sound easier, it definitely isn’t.

For my MA/MPhil thesis on the social uses of brand-related media content among youth in Austria, I used a combined and pretty unusual approach. I had my participants fill out media diaries and make facebook newsfeed screenshots, conducted interviews, did an exploratory group discussion and stayed in the field to observe for a few days – a high school. Loads of data, loads of small insights and loads of work.

—

Bachmann, G. & Wittel, A., 2006. Medienethnographie. In J. Bergmann & R. Ayaß, hrsg. Qualitative Methoden der Medienforschung. Hamburg: Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag.

Bergmann, J., 2008. Medienethnographie. In U. Sander, F. von Gross, & K.-U. Hugger, hrsg. Handbuch Medienpädagogik. Vs Verlag, , S. 328-334.

Bergmann, J., 2006. Qualitative Methoden der Medienforschung – Einleitung und Rahmung.In Qualitative Methoden der Medienforschung. Rowohlt, , S. 13-41.

Flick, U., 2007. Qualitative Sozialforschung: Eine Einführung 3. Aufl., rororo.

McCracken, G., 2006. Flock and Flow: Predicting and Managing Change in a DynamicMarketplace, Indiana Univ Pr.

Ritson, M. & Elliott, R., 1999. The social uses of advertising: an ethnographic study of adolescent advertising audiences. Journal of Consumer Research, 26(3), S. 260––277.

There are things in life you can’t quite predict. Me co-founding a software testing company is one of them.

Sometime last summer, I got a message from one of my colleagues at the ASEA Uninet summer university in Hanoi in 2008. We shared a room there for a month and got along brilliantly. He had gone to Texas for his high school year, he had moved from somewhere in the East of Germany to Vienna to study business. He had ran IT projects with higher budgets than I had ever got close to for the biggest student dorm/campus in Vienna, he was more of a geek than I was, which was always nice for a change at the business university. I just really liked him. And as things go, back in Vienna, things went into different directions again. Among other things, because I went off off to Vancouver.

(I pay you a drink if you can find me.)

However, after some back and forth, we managed to meet for drinks and stories about the old times when told me about how he’s thinking about founding an IT testing company with his colleague. How could I help a company that tests websites, apps and immensely complex software systems in the e.g. insurance industry? Yes, I know basics of computer science, but software testing? I played soundboard over a beer, told them what I thought about their idea, but mostly asked why they wanted to found it, what the purpose and motivation of that whole endeavor would be and so on and so on.

A few weeks later, they invited me for a workshop with them and I again promised to spend a few hours with them on their business for food and drinks. Or so I thought. Because they asked me that they’d want me to continue to help and advice them around strategy and marketing and that I could effectively chose the degree of my involvement. There was even an agenda point that listed me as one of the possible founding partners. In the end, they asked me if I could imagine joining them as some sort of an internal planner – no pay of course, but I’d own a part of the company. Actually, as much as I wanted. Of course, I was flattered. Who doesn’t want to be given the feeling of being listened to? At the same time, I was working full time as planner at LHBS. It’s not like you have that many hours to spare working in that type of industry. I still agreed to be a co-founder, with limited liability. Planning for equity. And I was terrible and could spend even less time on it than I had planned. Everything took longer than I expected – lot of cancelled early morning jour fixes and some weekend work followed.

Still, I am proud. We found out what sort of business we wanted to be. What we want to offer. Who we want to offer it to (I am, among other companies, looking at you, digital agencies that spend too much money letting their priced developers test stuff themselves). We figured out a name (TestPlus). Heck, we even have business cards. And a website, thanks to a great friend of mine who wants to be anonymous because he can’t quite bear the still imperfect state of it.

And we figured out why anybody should give a fuck.

Turns out, most software testing companies are old, slow and overly expensive. Most software testing companies are based on the way other consultancies work: proprietary processes, big and complicated websites, ties, suits and faith. At the same time, demand for testing is rising with increased digitalization (‘internet of things’, etc.). SMEs, entrepreneurs and digital agencies don’t need the bloat as they have to be fast (‘agile’, etc.) and work babble-free. My gut feeling told me that with rising demand for digital services and products, there’d be always rising demand for nimble and creative testing and testers. We arrived at some sort of mission of simplicity and convenience as the core of the offer (e.g. curating other automated testing services). We want to create a lean, mean nice, testing machine.

So what will my role in this end up being? I don’t know. Marcus and Christoph are terrific and whoever is lucky enough to have them work on their software systems is going to be very lucky. And a lot of work – development and, well, sales – are lying ahead. We worked on the foundation. We are about to start talks with possibly interested clients, we are still thankful for every lead – as you are, as a young service company (I avoid the term startup). Still, Stephanie and I decided to leave Austria (continue to get to know culture and get better at that planning thing), which means that my involvement in operative work will decline to zero relatively soon. Until then, we’ll continue to shape our offering and want to talk to as many people as possible. If you have any ideas, questions, recommendations or hints or are simply interested in what exactly it is we’re doing, drop me a line.

In about two hours my graduation ceremony starts. That means myself in a suit, a lot of other people in suits, my family coming to Vienna from the countryside, some speeches and a fancy certificate of my academic prowess. Master of arts. Right …

I also quit at LHBS with the beginning of the month. I was the first employee there and I guess I grew with the company. I learned a lot at LHBS. It was a great and special time, from getting the opportunity to do stuff to asking a friend like Neil over to do an Uncomfortable Talk for the company I work for. Then of course, I still had to finish my master thesis in communications and bachelor thesis in business. It wasn’t always easy to get that together, especially not if you hate trade-offs. I’m very thankful Stefan and Joanna put up with my schedule and me taking longer than I expected with the theses.

Now if I think back, in the last 5 years, before I finished university, I have been lucky enough to work on pretty much everything from global brands to medium sized regional companies to start ups and people with crazy ideas. I wrote about how I moved from web design to online marketing to an internship in planning at DDB in Budapest to the last two years at the independent brand strategy and innovation agency LHBS before, but all that never felt like much of a decision to make. It always felt logical or natural. I was always a student, not halfway there, and whatever I did, I did with the goal of finishing my research and thesis in mind. That doesn’t mean I didn’t think about what I was doing, but technically I was always a student, living his live in Vienna and about to finish. I could’ve quit my program a few times when people asked to come to a certain city to work with them or do a PHD in Vancouver. I never did. I told myself I was a student. I was in Vienna. I wanted to finish this. What a nice excuse, (eh?).

Now all this ‘I’m still a student’ talk ends. I’m not a student anymore. If I am realistic, I really haven’t been a student for quite a while. I remember Paul, someone I’d consider my mentor and one of my professors at the UBC in Vancouver telling me once how I’d have to stop calling myself a student. “You’re a young planner. You might still be studying, but you’re not a student.” – That was in 2009.

It was a special time, it was a great excuse and I still have a hard time to explain to people that while I am technically a grad, I have worked on stuff for quite a while.

So now on to that growing up thing. Starting with a trip around China and Singapore.

Two weeks ago, I was sitting at the exact same spot: On the couch in our living room, feet at the table, laptop on, well, my lap and extremely frustrated.

I was about to write a blog post about how I am done with tennis, the sport I have been doing for 18 years. I was about to write how frustrating it is to try to play at a higher level than the one I am able to play now – to expect that level of myself. How annoying it is to not be as fast as I used to be – or fast at all. How frustrating it is not to be able to trust my own body enough to take him through two or even three intensive sets of training a week. How ridiculous it feels to be out of breath after only 15 minutes of sparring. How sad it is to even spend time on it – time I could use doing other things. I would have written about how I have been telling myself the last 8 years in fall that I want to do a proper preparation next season. How I will hold through the next season without injury and how I still imagine how fucking awesome it will be when I am able to play up to my limits.

That night, I was just coming home from two hours of playing with my brother and I had all that feelings at once. It is April, the season is coming up, I’ll be playing the 3 (down from 2 and 1 the years before), I’m underprepared and – for playing the tennis I want to play – overweight. I was standing there and had the feeling like I was wasting my brother’s time.

Today, I am sitting here again, coming home from two hours of tennis for the first time on clay this year. I am still not prepared and I obviously won’t be in two weeks when the season starts. But I am happy. I am exhausted, my feet hurt, so does my right shoulder, but it was fun. I tried as hard as I could to be quick on my feet. I almost broke down on the court once after some longer rallies. I tried hard to play for control, not for beauty. I managed not to be stupid, throw the racket all over the place and make my brother feel ashamed for myself. That feeling, when the ball hits the line on a longline winner after a long rally. When it lands exactly where you wanted it, not a bit shorter or longer. That feeling when you sprint to reach a dropshot and convert it into a winner. That little swagger you get when you slowly feel your legs coming back under you. It’s just beautiful. And I don’t want to miss it.

Vienna, the corner where Neubaugasse meets Mariahilfer Straße.

He is walking down the road walking his fixie bike with his right hand. He flows through the stream of shopping, smiling, chatting people. Easily he walks through, with a spring in his step. It was spring. With his brown leather shoes, his blue trousers, the colorful shirt and the black headphones – he was Spring. His bike fit. Violet, pink and brown leather seat, thin like him. The drums and guitars he hears.

A young couple is standing a few meters in front of him. The man notices him. Examines him. Bike, guy, bike, buy. Up and down. Dismissive. ‘Spring’ walks past them. Did he notice them? The man nudges his girlfriend. Says ‘look’. As if his girlfriend hadn’t noticed. She did.

He moves on. Still pushing his bike. A group of girls is passing by. They giggle, smile, the first one in the group sees him first. Eyes down, eyes up. All smiles. Eyes light up. Giggles. Not dismissive. He walks by.

Then he stops. A hug, a kiss, and another kiss.



Only recently, when I graduated, I pondered for a moment how many great people I have met over the course of my too many years at university. (Yes, I met some idiots as well, you kind of do when you study media and business, but let’s not go there.)

One of the people I met, who firmly resides on the light side of the force, is Marica, and while we haven’t been in touch as much as we should, I recently noted that she’s going to do something that takes a lot of heart and also involves blood, sweat and tears. Ok, so I am not sure about the blood and tears part, but heart and sweat surely. When I read what she’s doing I sent her a few questions and thought why not share it on here.

Who are you and when did we meet? [I didn't ask that because I forgot, but for you, dear reader]

Me? I’m Marica Rizzo from Vancouver, BC Canada. We met in COMM263 Consumer Behavior when we did a group project together!

What is it that you participate in for charity?

This year I’m riding my bike from Vancouver to Seattle – just over 150km! The Ride to Conquer Cancer benefits the BC Cancer Foundation – an incredible organization funding and participating in research to cure cancer and support patients and their families. My fundraising goal this year is to raise $2500. I’m so blown away by the support I’ve received so far from friends and family. It’s amazing and I’m so grateful. I hit my 50% mark this week – so I’m half way there with about 2 months left before the ride.

Why did you decide to take part?

Cancer affects everyone. My friend growing up battled lukemia when we were 12 years old – that was my first experience with cancer. She is a survivor and an incredible girl! This past year, has also been incredibly overwhelming. Three people close to me were diagnosed and my friend lost a parent to cancer. I felt like this was the year to commit to doing something about it and taking what action I could. I’m not a researcher, I don’t have a medical background, so this is my way of supporting the people who have dedicated their lives to saving others.

What’s the longest distance you ever biked before this?

Haha…oh man, maybe 40km? I biked from Vancouver to Horseshoe Bay once, but took the bus back…I have a lot of training to do. The weather is nice in Vancouver again so I’ll be back on the bike this weekend.

What is your biggest dream?

I have so many…this is a hard one! I’m a big fan of sports. Not just watching professional sports, but participating and specifically of the incredible (and applicable) lessons from sport you can apply to life. One of my dreams is to make participating in sports accessible to all kids and to use sport as a platform for connecting to other kids around the world – I love kids.

What are you doing to make it real?

Gotta start somewhere. Right now I am volunteering as a coach with a Special Olympics swim team in my hometown. I’m learning what sport means to different people and how it is a part of their lives. I have been on many teams in my life, but I can honestly say this is the most incredible team I have ever been on. The most supportive and exemplary of sportsmanship and blending competition with a supportive environment.

—

Well, now you know Marica. I think what she does is pretty amazing.

Click here to visit her personal page for the charity.

She’s @maricarizzo on twitter if you want to say hi.

It’s been a while since I last updated my blog, so hello everybody.
As some of you may know, I handed in my master thesis in November and have started working full time as a strategist at LHBS, after having worked there ever since it started, but not at full capacity because of … well … university.

Now it’s really time to say goodbye to university in a last push through my exam. The way things work here, you have two professors asking about two different subjects. I could chose the topics and literature myself, as long as I was able to hold my ground on it.

My fist topic is advertising research. Here’s the literature list for it. Mind you, some of this is German.

1 My Thesis (epistemological interest, state of research, research strategy)
My topic was the German version of
“Social Media and the Corporate Cool Machine. The use of brand-related media content and its meaning in the context of new communicative practices and spaces.” (Fancy, eh?)

2 Theories of Advertising Research
2.1 Perspectives of Communication Theory (German)

• Siegert, G. & Brecheis, D., 2005. Werbung in der Medien- und Informationsgesellschaft: Eine kommunikationswissenschaftliche Einführung, 1st ed., VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.
• Gries, R., 2006. Produkte & Politik: zur Kultur- und Politikgeschichte der Produktkommunikation, Facultas Verlag. (Products & Politics. A Cultural and Political History of Product Communication. This book is awesome.)
• Zurstiege, G., 2000. Kleiner Grenzverkehr zwischen Werbung, Journalismus und Kunst. Available at: http://www.sjschmidt.net/essays/texte/zurst1.htm [Zugegriffen November 6, 2011].
• Zurstiege, G., 2005. Zwischen Kritik und Faszination. Was wir beobachten, wenn wir die Werbung beobachten, wie sie die Gesellschaft beobachtet 1st ed., Halem.
• Zurstiege, G., 2007. Werbeforschung 1st ed., Utb.

2.2 Theoretical Discussion (Information vs. meaning, persuasion vs. emotion, individual vs. groups)

• Petty, R.E. & Cacioppo, J.T., 1986. Communication and persuasion: Central and peripheral routes to attitude change, Springer-Verlag New York.
• Heath, R. & Feldwick, P., 2008. Fifty years using the wrong model of advertising. International Journal of Market Research, 50(1), p.29.
• McCracken, G., 1987. Advertising: Meaning or information. Advances in Consumer Research, 14 (1), pp.121–124.
• Mick, D.G. & Buhl, C., 1992. A meaning-based model of advertising experiences. Journal of Consumer Research, 19(3), pp.317–338.
• Vakratsas, D. & Ambler, T., 1999. How advertising works: what do we really know? Journal of Marketing, 63(1), pp.26–43.
• Earls, M., 2003. Advertising to the herd: how understanding our true nature challenges the ways we think about advertising and market research. International Journal of Market Research, 45(3), pp. 311–336.

2.3 One additional theory: Advertising and agenda setting/salience (this is what’s behind “How Brands Grow” by Sharp)

• Sutherland, M. & Galloway, J., 1981. Role of advertising: Persuasion or agenda setting. Journal of Advertising Research, 21(5), S. 25–29.
• Ghorpade, S., 1986. Agenda setting: a test of advertising’s neglected function. Journal of Advertising Research, 26(4), S. 23–27.
• Ehrenberg, A., 1974. Repetitive Advertising and the Consumer. Journal of Advertising Research, 14(2), pp.24–34.
• Ehrenberg, A., Barnard, N. & Scriven, J., 1997. Differentiation or salience. Journal of Advertising Research, 37(6), pp.7–14.
• Ehrenberg, A. et al., 2002. Brand advertising as creative publicity. Journal of Advertising Research, 42(4), pp.7–18.
• Romaniuk, J. & Sharp, B., 2003. Measuring brand perceptions: Testing quantity and quality. Journal of Targeting, Measurement and Analysis for Marketing, 11(3), S. 218–229.
• Romaniuk, J. & Sharp, B., 2004. Conceptualizing and measuring brand salience. Marketing Theory, 4(4), S. 327–342.
• Sharp, B., 2010. Ehrenberg’s View of Advertising. Journal of Advertising Research, 50(4), pp. 352-353.

3 Methods and results of advertising research
3.1 Measuring success
3.1.1 About effects and success

• Tropp, J., 2004. Markenmanagement: Der Brand Management Navigator. Markenführung im Kommunikationszeitalter, VS Verlag. (Brand Management in the Communication Age.)
• Zurstiege, G., 2007. Werbeforschung 1st ed., Utb.
• Rossiter, J.R. & Bellman, S., 2005. Marketing communications: theory and applications, Prentice Hall. Kapitel ‘Campaign Tracking’: S. 312-343

Depending on the theory, success is interpreted differently:
3.1.2 Individual

• Schweiger, G. & Schrattenecker, G., 2009. Werbung 7. Aufl., UTB, Stuttgart. Kapitel: ‘Messung der Kommunikationswirkung’, S. 338-376 (this is standard ad testing / research)

3.1.3 Group (a bit of @herdmeister)

• Bentley, A. & Earls, M., 2008. Forget influentials, herd-like copying is how brands spread. Admap, 43(499), S. 19-22.
• Bentley, A., Earls, M., O’Brien, M.J. & Maeda, J., 2011. I’ll Have What She’s Having: Mapping Social Behavior, MIT Press.
• Kearon, J., Earls, M., 2009. Me-to-We Research-From asking unreliable witnesses about themselves to asking people what they notice, believe and predict about others. In ESOMAR Congress. http://www.brainjuicer.com/xtra/Me-to-We_Research_-_ESOMAR_Congress_2009.pdf

3.1.4 Results
Effectiveness:

• Binet, L. & Field, P., 2009. Empirical generalizations about advertising campaign success. Journal of Advertising Research, 49(2), pp.383–94.

Creativity and Effects:

• Smith, R.E. & Yang, X., 2004. Toward a general theory of creativity in advertising: Examining the role of divergence. Marketing Theory, 4(1-2), p.31.
• Smith, R.E., Chen, J. & Yang, X., 2008. The Impact of Advertising Creativity on the Hierarchy of Effects. Journal of Advertising, 37(4), pp.47–62.
• Smith, R.E. et al., 2007. Modeling the determinants and effects of creativity in advertising. Marketing Science, 26(6), pp.819–833.

3.1.5 Another method: Low-Attention Processing

• Heath, R. & Nairn, A., 2005. Measuring affective advertising: Implications of low attention processing on recall. Journal of Advertising Research, 45(2), 269.
• Heath, R., Brandt, D. & Nairn, A., 2006. Brand relationships: Strengthened by emotion, weakened by attention. Journal of Advertising Research, 46(4), p.410.
• Heath, R., 2009. Emotional engagement: How television builds big brands at low attention. Journal of advertising research, 49(1).

4 Social uses of advertising

• Lannon, J. & Cooper, P., 1983. Humanistic advertising: a holistic cultural perspective.
• Buttle, F., 1991. What do people do with advertising. International Journal of Advertising, 10(2), S. 95–110.
• O’Donohoe, S., 1994. Advertising uses and gratifications. European Journal of Marketing, 28(8/9), S. 52–75.
• O’Donohoe, S. & Tynan, C., 1998. Beyond sophistication: dimensions of advertising literacy. International Journal of Advertising, 17, S. 467–482.
• Ritson, M. & Elliott, R., 1999. The social uses of advertising: an ethnographic study of adolescent advertising audiences. Journal of Consumer Research, 26(3), pp.260–277.
• Mitchell, V., Macklin, J.E. & Paxman, J., 2007. Social uses of advertising: an example of young male adults. International Journal of Advertising, 26(2), S. 199.

And then there’s my second topic:

Media and communication theory and methotodology.

1. Identity theory

• Keupp, H. u. a., 1999. Identitätskonstruktionen: Das Patchwork der Identitäten in der Spätmoderne 4. Aufl., rororo.

2. Media ethnography

• Bachmann, G. & Wittel, A., 2006. Medienethnographie. In J. Bergmann & R. Ayaß, hrsg. Qualitative Methoden der Medienforschung. Hamburg: Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag.
• Bergmann, J., 2008. Medienethnographie. In U. Sander, F. von Gross, & K.-U. Hugger, hrsg. Handbuch Medienpädagogik. Vs Verlag, , S. 328–334.
• Bergmann, J., 2006. Qualitative Methoden der Medienforschung – Einleitung und Rahmung. In Qualitative Methoden der Medienforschung. Rowohlt, , S. 13–41.
• Blumer, H., 1956. Sociological Analysis and the „Variable“. American sociological review, 21(6), S. 683–690.
• Charmaz, K., 2006. Constructing grounded theory: a practical guide through qualitative analysis, SAGE.
• Flick, U., 2007. Qualitative Sozialforschung: Eine Einführung 3. Aufl., rororo.

3. Symbolic Interactionism

• Elliott, R. & Wattanasuwan, K., 1998. Brand as symbolic resources for the construction of identity. International Journal of Advertising, 17(2), S. 131–144.
• Mead, G.H., 1967. Mind, self, and society: from the standpoint of a social behaviorist, University of Chicago Press.

4. Advertising as a system

• Zurstiege, G., 2005. Zwischen Kritik und Faszination. Was wir beobachten, wenn wir die Werbung beobachten, wie sie die Gesellschaft beobachtet 1st ed., Halem.

5. Consumer Culture Theory

• Arnould, E.J. & Thompson, C.J., 2005. Consumer culture theory (CCT): Twenty years of research. Journal of Consumer Research: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly, 31(4), S. 868–882.
• Holt, D.B., 2002. Why do brands cause trouble? A dialectical theory of consumer culture and branding. Journal of Consumer Research, 29(1), S. 70–90.

This post is part of my bachelor paper ‘The Evolving Role of Creativity in Brand Management’. You can see the other posts and the table of contents here.

Historic perspectives on brand management have identified some distinct phases that each go along with certain developments and traits (Gries 2006, p.15ff; Zurstiege 2007, p.19ff; Tropp 2004, p.22ff). The beginning of modern advertising in Germany is tied to the industrialisation and the associated introduction of freedom of trade (1869) and registered and protected trademarks (1874) (Zurstiege 2007, p.24). With the social acceptance of the concept of competition started the professionalisation of advertising and – along with it – advertising research, which in turn led to the public debate of its central techniques in Vance Packards’ “The Hidden Persuaders” (Zurstiege 2007, p.24).

Gries (2006, p.15) sees products as media of the modern age and describes the process of the medialisation of products. This process started in the late 19th century, accelerated due to a strong increase of demand in the 20s and 30s and is concluded with the widespread diffusion of televisions in the 60s. Since then, according to Gries (2006, p.15) a brand works similar to a newspaper, the radio or television in that it is surrounded by a dense net of communication relationships that formed over the course of this process of medialisation.

Looking more at the main functions that brands played in different eras, Tropp identified three phases, that he calls “Markierungsphase” (labelling or branding phase), “Wirkungsphase” (effect or impact phase) and “Kommunikationsphase” (communication phase). The first or branding phase started around the 5th century, when identification and distinction emerged as the first function of brands (Tropp 2004, p.23f). Social developments like the formation of the first cities or the establishment of guilds changed the specific functions of brands, it took until the before mentioned dawn of the industrial age, however, until the effect phase of brands emerged (Tropp 2004, p.25ff). Apart from the identification function, brands’ chief function now lied in persuading potential consumers. In addition to the identification of a brand now there is the social practice of identification with a brand (Tropp 2004, p.36). Holt (2002, p.79ff) calls this the modern branding paradigm:

„Marketers made no pretense about their intentions in these branding efforts. They directed consumers as to how they should live and why their brand should be a central part of this kind of life. Advertisements shared a paternal voice that is particular to this era. By contemporary standards, these ads appear naive and didactic in their approach. This paternalism reveals that, at the time, consumer culture allowed companies to act as cultural authorities. Their advice was not only accepted but sought out.“ (Holt 2002, p.80)

Holt (2002, p.83ff) argues, that this paradigm ended up being replaced by the creative revolution of the 60s in what he denoted as an emerging post-modern branding paradigm. Branding then had to cope with social changes at a massive scale and a new anti-corporatist, yet consumerist culture that it somehow had to adapt to. It adopted and in turn relied on five central and then new techniques (for a description of the techniques that had a widespread media impact see Klein 1999): Authentic Cultural Resources, Ironic, Reflexive Brand Persona, Coattailing on Cultural Epicenters, Life World Emplacement, Stealth Branding . While these techniques were certainly new and a response to changing cultural and social environments at the time, they have again run into some severe contradictions and are losing their effect quickly (ibid.).

Holt (2002, p.68ff) and Tropp (2004, p.68ff) both argue that we can now see a different phase, that puts the relationship between a company and its consumer, or in general its role in society into focus. Driven on the one hand by the pressing scarcity of attention (Schmidt 2004, p.53ff; Tropp 2004, p.71f), by changing attitudes and expectations that citizens have of the role of companies in their communities and by the emergence of new technologies and feedback channels that made marketing tactics like CRM, but also a society ever more aware of the power of their public opinion possible. While doubts about the role, effectiveness and efficiency of advertising are a main driver of this transformation, this perspective also implies a more consumer-centric view of communication. It argues that the construction of meaning is done by consumers within the boundaries of collectively shared social symbols and ultimately demands a rejection of the pure sender-receiver model of mass communication as conceptualized in the early 20th century (Tropp 2004, p.72) and since then renounced by communication research.

The main conclusion of this current phase of branding is that companies are now more than ever competing in the field of communication and that communicative competence that goes beyond advertising is becoming a core asset of companies.

—
Gries, R., 2006. Produkte & Politik: zur Kultur- und Politikgeschichte der Produktkommunikation, Facultas Verlag.
Holt, D.B., 2002. Why do brands cause trouble? A dialectical theory of consumer culture and branding. Journal of Consumer Research, 29(1), pp.70–90.
Klein, N., 1999. No Logo: no space, no choice, no jobs ; taking aim at the brand bullies, New York, NY: Picador.
Schmidt, S.J., 2004. Die Werbung ist vom Anfang an am Ende. In S. Kemmler, J. Ballentin, & C. Gerlitz, eds. Die Depression der Werbung. : Berichte von der Couch / Berliner KommunikationsFORUM e.V. Sebastian Kemmler. BusinessVillage.
Tropp, J., 2004. Markenmanagement: Der Brand Management Navigator. Markenführung im Kommunikationszeitalter, VS Verlag.
Zurstiege, G., 2007. Werbeforschung 1st ed., Utb.

This post is part of my bachelor paper ‘The Evolving Role of Creativity in Brand Management’. You can see the other posts and the table of contents here.

Just as complexity, structural coupling is a key term of systems theory. Usually used to describe the structural relationship between cognition and communication via language and media (Tropp 2004, p.64), this concept may be used in brand management to denote the relationship between companies that produce brands and consumers and bridge the before mentioned dichotomy between producer- and consumer perspective – or image and identity (Tropp 2004, p.65). Structural coupling in that context means that while a company as a social system and a consumer as a cognitive system are to be strictly distinguished, no company is possible without consumers and vice versa (Tropp 2004, p.64).

To specify and manage this structural coupling between a company and its consumers via the brand as realm of knowledge is one of the most pressing issues of brand management and again, able to integrate mostly consumer-oriented trends and pressures. For example, there is an apparent contradiction between an increasing brand consciousness and an at the same time decreasing brand loyalty with consumers (Essinger 2001, p.66 qt. in Tropp 2004, p. 66) that also taps into the debate about consumers’ increasing unpredictability. Using data from a global, longitudinal survey that runs since 1993, Gerzema and Lebar (Young & Rubicam) have found out that since 2004 all consumer attitudes towards brands over the globe were in decline.

“Across the board, we saw significant drops in the key measures of brand value, such as consumer “top- of-mind” awareness, trust, regard, and admiration. This was true not just for a few brands, but for thousands, encompassing the entire range of consumer goods and services, from airlines and automobiles and beverages to insurance companies and hoteliers and retailers.” (Gerzema & Lebar 2009, p.2)

They argue that a brand bubble has developed for the fact that while the valuation of brands as done by financial analysts is steadily increasing, this overall value that these brands actually deliver for consumers, is provided by less and less (stronger) brand in the overall brand universe.

This contradiction does not put an end to the structural coupling of consumers and brands, but it suggests that the relationship between them has fundamentally changed. Since the 1980s, until then mostly unidirectional relationships have transformed into interactive and multi-directional relationships, as signified by developments such as relationship marketing, one-to-one-marketing, direct marketing, permission marketing, customer relationship management or the developments happening under the umbrella term of social media marketing. As research conducted under the relational paradigm (MacInnis et al. 2009; Fournier 1998) is striving to provide scientific insights into the company-brand-consumer relationship, branding has moved from what Tropp (2004, p.67) calls the effect phase to the communication phase.

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Essinger, G., 2001. Produkt- und Markenpolitik im dynamischen Umfeld: eine Analyse aus systemtheoretischer Perspektive, Dt. Univ.-Verl.
Fournier, S., 1998. Consumers and their brands: Developing relationship theory in consumer research. Journal of consumer research, pp.343–373.
Gerzema, J. & Lebar, E., 2009. The Trouble with Brands. strategy + business, 55(Summer 2009). Available at: http://www.strategy-business.com/article/09205 [Accessed February 4, 2011].
MacInnis, D.J. et al., 2009. Handbook of brand relationships, M.E. Sharpe.
Tropp, J., 2004. Markenmanagement: Der Brand Management Navigator. Markenführung im Kommunikationszeitalter, VS Verlag.

This post is part of my bachelor paper ‘The Evolving Role of Creativity in Brand Management’. You can see the other posts and the table of contents here.

While in the past three global CEO studies, conducted by IBM, coping with change was the most pressing challenge, complexity took the lead in 2010, as seen in Figure 2.

“CEOs told us they operate in a world that is substantially more volatile, uncertain and complex. Many shared the view that incremental changes are no longer sufficient in a world that is operating in fundamentally different ways.“ (IBM 2010, p.8)

Figure 2: Organisations and complexity (IBM 2010, p.15)

Complexity is the most important concept in systems theory, as it is the reason why systems form in the first place. While the term is present in different approaches to systems theory,  Luhmann’s theory of social systems popularized it, stating

“we will call an interconnected collection of elements complex when, because of imminent constraints in the elements’ connective capacity, it is no longer possible at any moment to connect every element with every other element […] Complexity in this sense means being forced to select; being forced to select means contingency; and contingency means risk.” (Luhmann 1995, p.25)

A system can never reach the same level of complexity as its environments and therefore has to counter-balance this inferiority with selection-strategies, reducing external complexities (Tropp 2004, p.57). This necessarily selective reduction of relations between elements (e.g. information) is called contingency and brings with it the necessary risk to select different possible combinations of elements. However, with every selections come different other – not selected – possibilities that would be possible as well.What sounds arbitrarily complicating in the first place, does make sense in light of the unrelated and relatively arbitrary list of trends, drivers and perspectives that are present in brand management and marketing textbooks. To illustrate the concept of complexity in this context, it can be said that branding theory does not have an appropriate selection strategy (theory) that is able to reduce the environmental complexity (challenges) to a level that would allow for sensible systematization.

Complexity is a theoretical concept that is not able to explain the myriad of trends and environmental challenges, but the fact that companies will – in the future – have to accept unprecedented complexity as a permanent trait of their environment (Rose & Zuckerman 2009, p.13) and to acknowledge that “it’s no longer possible to observe and predict enough to map out courses of action that guarantee desired outcomes” (Andjelic 2010).

This has some important implications for strategic planning and strategic thinking that will be introduced at a later point.

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Andjelic, A., 2010. the problem of strategy. i [love] marketing. Available at: http://anaandjelic.typepad.com/i_love_marketing/2010/07/the-problem-of-strategy-1.html [Accessed January 4, 2011].

IBM, 2010. Capitalizing on Complexity. Insights from the 2010 IBM Global CEO Study. Available at: http://www-935.ibm.com/services/us/ceo/ceostudy2010/index.html.

Luhmann, N., 1995. Social systems, Stanford University Press.

Rose, J. & Zuckerman, N., 2009. Can You Reach the Masses Without Mass Media? Available at: https://www.bcgperspectives.com/content/articles/cmos_dilemma/ [Accessed February 4, 2011].

Tropp, J., 2004. Markenmanagement: Der Brand Management Navigator. Markenführung im Kommunikationszeitalter, VS Verlag.