Virtual Social Media

(Source: Next Galaxy Corp)

The confluence of technology, innovation and ideas is producing the most rapid expansion of human capital possibilities the world has ever known. Freed of regionalism, and the tyranny of traditional workplaces, our minds are freer to explore potentials in new environments than ever before.

Social media enables connection, intimate and transient, to occur over an infinite distance of both time and space. Records persist, and our desires for immortality captured in digital data manifest in streams of tweets, blogs and posts. Content is prodigiously produced, with no chance to chronologise or qualify beyond the immediacy of peers’ recognition through likes, retweets and amplification. Perhaps one day looking back upon the sum total of our earthly achievements, these metrics will be a reassuring reminder of a life well spent. But the shallowness of these quantifications may leave our minds wanting for the richness of the moment. If only we'd taken seconds to record deeper experiences, perhaps through literature, art or music. These heavily time invested modalities of recording cultural memory already feel relegated to the annals of a slower, more considered time. Yet the lustfulness of their vitality persists.

Capturing digital media currently exists within a limited dimensional spectrum. We record on smartphones the still and moving images of our lives, complemented by aural landscapes sufficient to jog memory. With super computers in our pockets and narcissistic intentions in our hearts, we diligently capture and share every moment with willing and unwilling audiences, seeking public recognition of our feats. But the momentary richness is lacking when we replay these moments, recalling bits and replaying bites.

Virtual reality technology, the domain of Lawnmower Man dreams, failed to deliver collective 90s fiction. Until now, a human’s ability to suspend visual disbelief has not been fooled by technology. But as the virtual reality regains momentum and approaches the critical point of consumer products, the platform seems ripe for media consumption of a massive scale.

Our willingness to record, replay and retweet our every moment is well established. The technology to relive these experiences in a virtual, immersive environment is not far off. The final component will be the ability for consumers to capture their experiences immersively, through three dimensions of space, as well as that of time, to replay and share at their hearts’ content.

When these elements combine, we’ll see the emergence of a new social phenomenon - one that will further polarise the cultural, social, environmental and economic landscape, while at the same time mending contemporary points of dissonance. When people can capture their experiences using 3D technologies and share these through established channels of social media, to be consumed anywhere in the world immersively through virtual reality, we will see the rise of Virtual Social Media.

Imagine a mother sharing virtual reality photographs of their newborn son with their grandparents half way around the world. Or an orthopaedic surgeon able to advise a local general practitioner on the best way to set a bone cast in Africa. Or a conference call between an American biotechnology company streamed live via 3D cameras mounted on a drone to a potential customer in Germany.

These confluences of recording technology, media consumption and the rise of social media will drive a paradigm shift in how we record, share and consume our personal media. It will lead to more restrained rationalisation for travel and subsequent decreases in environmental degradation. It will bring us cognitively closer together while physically keeping us apart. It will privilege those with access to technology, while alienating and impoverishing those left behind.

As we move into a world of Virtual Social Media, the directors of this change must be the custodians of our collective heritage, where a society is judged on the treatment of its most impoverished citizen. As we write this new future, recording the achievements of everyman, everyman must be included, and no one left behind.

Duncan Bell
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School

MONA and The Art of Words

Over breakfast this morning one of my clever classmates reminded me that the heart of communication is not simply what we say, but how we say it. It was a simple, offhand comment that got me thinking about the many messages we’re bombarded with daily, and how a brand I experienced over the weekend cut through this noise using the simplest of tools.

Thanks to an invitation from good friends to share in their Tasmanian wedding, I had the amazing pleasure of visiting Hobart over the weekend to spend time at MONA, the Museum of Old and New Art. Yet to even reach its 4th birthday, this irreverent private gallery burst into existence at the dawn of 2011, the child of the Tasmanian millionaire David Walsh. In his own words, he described MONA as a ‘subversive adult Disneyland’ (Young, 2011), and having experienced it for myself I can attest to its ability to both delight and disturb in equal measure.

MONA sits like a fort on the headland, protecting its secrets within
(http://www.fkaustralia.com/project/s/name/mona-museum/)

Much has been written about the stunning architectural feats of Nonda Katisilidis and his masterful integration of concrete, stone, rusted steal and glass to create a cavernous underground gallery akin to an oversized labyrinthine playground. Even more words have been penned about the art collection itself, controversially capturing the visceral journey of life to death.

The art and architecture have created a unique destination for Hobart, but that’s been well documented. What I wanted to explore was a more intimate experience with the brand, reinforcing the brand experience with how it expressed itself in simple words.

The cavernous labyrinthe playground at the heart of MONA
(http://artblart.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/mona-corten-stairwell-2.jpg?w=655&h=473)

As a young upstart to the traditional and stayed art institutes, it was the words MONA used to speak with viewers that struck me with their unique approach. To put it simply, MONA spoke as a self-confident young upstart, happy to irreverently poke fun at the establishment. It leverages humour and colloquialism to reposition art as less highbrow and more approachable, cleverly opening itself up to a wider audience of consumers.

Using this tone of voice also worked to create a unique position in the art world, one many older institutions would find hard to attack, through its choice of words. The opening description at MONA captures this tone nicely, and sets up the execution throughout all touch points of written marketing communications; ‘Looking at art used to be boring. It still is, maybe, but at least here at MONA you can get drunk and/or rage against the machine’.

The O gallery tour app at MONA consistently employs the brands tone of voice
(http://www.mona.net.au/theo/)

Other examples include The O, MONA’s art tour app provided to all guests upon arrival. Where most galleries would present the curators commentary, MONA referred to theirs as ‘Art Wank’, irreverently illustrated with a stylized male phallus. Locals, who are provided free entry to the gallery, were told ‘If you are Tasmanian, and identify yourself as such (yes, yes, second head, etc etc), you get in for free’. The VIP lounge on the high-speed ferry is called the Posh Pit, available ‘for a mere fifty bucks’ which is ‘posh as’. Even the branded festivals hit the mark, with the upcoming MOFO sticking it to the system.

The MONA festival MOFO plays up the irreverence
(http://mofo.net.au)

They are just words and a small part of what the MONA brands says about itself. But with the noise of communication competing for our attention, they represent an important channel to consider in delivering a consistent and engaging brand experience for consumers. The pen is mightier than the sword, and a brands tone of voice an asset not to be forgotten.

Duncan Bell
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School

If your mum were a professional, what would her role look like?

It's easy to take for granted the most important people in our lives, forgetting what they mean to each of us. That is, until we are reminded and given the opportunity to be grateful.

That's the insightful brilliance of the World's Toughest Job campaign by the agency Mullen for American Greetings. In the build up to mother’s day, the greeting card company tapped a universal consumer insight to develop an emotionally resonating ad to drive behaviour. What they ultimately created was a viral sensation gaining over 21.4 million views, for a rather mundane product, the humble mother day card.

So what consumer insight drove the ad and which consumer effects were targeted?

Consumer insights help to explain the why of a consumer’s action and can result in a new way of looking at an old problem. It's the revelation when you uncover a seemly obvious truth, which marketing can use to create ideas that resonate with the audience. In the World's Toughest Job, the consumer insight centres on the role of mothers in all of our lives. Mothers are the unsung heroes of the world, giving everything and expecting nothing in return. American Greetings is here to help you show your mum how grateful you are.

The objective of the online ad touches upon some of the aspects of integrated perception, having multiple effects on the audience. Firstly, it plays to emotions, driving an affective appeal by evoking the love we have for all our mothers, particularly in the moment when the job of Director of Operations is finally revealed as the work of mums.

Secondly, it leverages perception, using fly on the wall art direction and a reality driven narrative to draw the audience into the unfolding narrative, rewarding engagement with the punch line.

Finally, it drives behaviour, encouraging customers at the end of the ad to make a card for their mums, showing they are grateful.

This delightful ad is a clear standout for American Greeting. It's a new take on celebrating a mother’s thankless role, and a call to action for every child at heart to show their love.

Duncan Bell
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School

How co-creation is defining a new direction for Airbnb

If you’re not familiar with Airbnb, then to put it simply, you’re not travelling the right way.

Sure, we could all simply check into a hotel when we get to a foreign city, but in many ways this distances us from the sense of place and marginalises us to the category of a tourist. In the search for something more authentic, an experience with purpose, Airbnb connects property owners with short term renters through an online collaborative consumption marketplace. The result is the potential for a traveller, or guests as they are known to Airbnb, to stay in 34,000 cities around the world in accommodation ranging from soho lofts, to igloos; houses to lake side log cabins. The value for owners, which they refer to as hosts, is that they can unlock value in their idle assets and contribute to a global community movement.

An example of one of the many destinations available through the Airbnb marketplace - www.airbnb.com.com

So how do you grow an online marketplace with a customer centric approach when many of the touch points for the consumer are beyond your control? Airbnb continues to increase their interactions with hosts and guests by co-creating new tools and systems which allow greater trust between stakeholders, captures more value through augmented product features and enhances the unique experience while working to increasing consistency.

By building a Hospitality Innovation Lab in Dublin to train hosts and observe guests, Airbnb has been able to capture their interactions, developing new features in direct response such as instant bookings and friction reducing moments for exchanging keys. This process of co-creation increases the value of the experience for each of the engaging actors as well as the brand of Airbnb.

In augmenting the core product of a lodging marketplace, Airbnb storyboarded the entire experience for a typical traveller to identify new customer touch points, which could be captured in the move to reposition the company as a hospitality provider. From this, new ideas such as airport transfers, dry cleaning services and restaurant recommendations have been identified with the potential to integrate with the Airbnb marketplace to augment their offering.

Finally, Airbnb’s value proposition of a unique travel experience has been let down in the past by the inconsistent and even negative experiences of a minority of its guests. To increase consistency while maintaining uniqueness, they will soon be offering cleaning services to their hosts, including the provision of towels and linen. Additionally, a graded system of hosts will help increase quality and manage guest expectations. These paid services help guests select premium services, hosts to differentiate themselves through increased quality, and Airbnb a revenue generating augmented product feature.

In short, these customer centric features are bringing Airbnb more inline with the expectation of a traditional traveller, while staying true to the value proposition of unique holiday locations with which it differentiated itself and disrupted the industry.

The Airbnb headquarters reflect the diversity of experience offered by their hosts to guests.
http://www.fastcompany.com/3021556/fast-feed/airbnb-made-a-lot-of-announcements-today

The search for a new meaning for Airbnb beyond the online platform has led them toward becoming an integrated hospitality provider, seeking to co-create new value for their guests and hosts through a more rigorous understanding of the customer value chain.

As they enter this new era, it’s clear the innovation that created this disruptive platform is far from petering out.

Duncan Alexander Bell
Current student in the Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney Business School