Ideas and relationships

An idea can be singular, a moment, finite.

It's there and then we're on to the next idea.

Posters are put up, hit singles enter rotation, appearances in the Super Bowl happen and then...

Sometimes all you want is that limited exposure. Hello! Goodbye!

A media buyer once told me billboards were “a reminder medium.” Hello! Goodbye!

This was the dominant structure of advertising ideas from the 1950s to the arrival of the Internet. Hello! Goodye!

Brands produced a fusillade of finite ideas. And it implied a relationship that was inherently one-way.

But if you want an idea to stick around now, you've got to think about the give and take. You've got to build relationship into the ethos of message and function. Figure out how to talk to me not generically as a white, mid 40s male in the upper midwest with a penchant for ascots and pocket squares and Fluevogs. Can your brand figure out how to engage me as me, not just as an archetype, over time? Incidentally, I would appreciate a relationship with brands who want to talk about ascots and pocket squares. And you probably can't be that personal the first go-'round, in your first salvo. But it ought to be your intent.

Maybe that's why Beck released his latest album as sheet music first, instead of recording his take on the notes. By default, the artist is acknowledging the listener's increasing role in interpreting and distributing music today. He's confirmed the relationship you have together with him. Those that take Beck's opening salvo have a chance to burnish their own story as much as his. It's an idea based on relationship. Maybe Beck wants to develop a circle of likeminded artists and learn what's out there. Maybe his latest album isn't a statement, but a question for others like him. In this case, the brand of Beck is asking “What happens next?” versus the age-old approach of telling us “This is what happens next.”

Of course this isn't easy to do if you've got to move merchandise 24/7. The old marketing idea model didn't care about relationships; just enough of one on the sales side to close -- and then you got pushed over to customer service (who never started the relationship). The old model talked a relationship, but we all knew one never existed. Everyone lied to each other.

All that said, if we're marketing consumables, that old model (the non-relationship model or the implied “we're friends... right?” model) can still work. After all, who wants a relationship with their razor or their fast food or their ATM? Sometimes it still makes sense for brands to just talk and presume audiences are just listening. More power to you if it does. I'll love your funny brand video as much as the next person. I'll share it, too. But that's not about building a relationship between me and your brand. All I want is for you to show me a clever reinterpretation of “30% off” or “best in class MPG” or “new smell.” So there's no reason to concern ourselves with the components of relationship when we're building old model ideas. Better to measure broad awareness and sales and One Show pencils, like we used to.

Now if we're trying to engage beyond just being noticed, then relationships can't be automated. No, it takes human effort and that's expensive. Being appealing, being dramatic, causing the reaction, “I hadn't thought of it that way before” isn't found in an algorithm (at least not consistently).

That's why we still need (expensive) ad agencies, designers and artists. Or social media/customer service teams. We need people who care about the flow of the relationship.Relationships are transactions. Give and take. Listening and invention. That's inter-acting. That's the action between two entities. As services like Cir.ca and Contently as well as in-house brand social teams flourish (as adjuncts or in reaction to customer service), it's become easier to scope and scale “relationship” ideas. We've got infrastructure to budget for and produce relationships. Now all we need to do is make a habit of it.

Ideas and relationships aren't always the right answer, or profitable or wanted. But we're living and operating in a place now where ideas and relationships are increasingly more viable, a better approach and frankly more interesting for all concerned.