#duffypickuplines: Social Accountability and the Meme Meat Market

"My place, or my place?"
"You compensate me."
     #duffypickuplines

Here's why the Conservative Party of Canada ought to love the Duffy meme - it's a perfect example of everything they used to stand for.  Social accountability? Check! Using highly critical humor to pillory someone you've identified as tax-dollar gobbler? I guess they still kinda do that, unless it's one of their own (but not staff, because they don't count).

Above all, though, the #duffypickuplines meme is a great example of how the free market really works: people are competing to come up with the funniest, most biting line.  Wanting to get public recognition for their wittiness, folk are tweeting and retweeting their lines, while the really catchy ones get mass-tweeted organically.  It also helps to have celebrity endorsements, like a retweet from Andrew Coyne.  Of course, some novel folk come up with the idea of posting rather than retweeting someone's line, trying to sound more witty than they are.  You get a lot of that in the free market, too.

Everyone is producing and consuming in a specific market space, generating demand for more of the same, creating more options for jokes to choose from.

It's the market place for ideas.  And it looks an awful lot like a meat market - the branding, the wingmen and sheer volume is what generates attraction, or failing that - originality.  Money isn't the goal here, as it never is - it's brand, klout, power that has ultimate appeal.  That's why so many people are dedicating unpaid time in trying to one-up each other; it's the status, stupid!

Is any of this useful in terms of economic growth? Perhaps not directly, but the decline of civility, planning and transparency in government hasn't been good either.  The whole meme movement is a modern-day shivaree, reminding the Duffys of the world that new House or not, it's OUR world he lives in and our money he's playing with.  The underlying theme is that of the collective holding an individual accountable.

There's an interesting parallel here; Anonymous couldn't exit without the Internet and is seen as a bit of an E-Vigilante.  Memes, on the other hand, equates to the mob - they don't need to be faceless because they are the face of society.

In response to all this free market of ideas tweetishness, the goal of Team Harper will be to change the channel by attacking something else or convincing themselves waiting it out will work.  Both, oddly enough, are limbic reactions to threat.  Laissez-faire, it would seem, doesn't work so well when accountability's involved.

Meanwhile, someone's sitting at a desk somewhere with a quiet smile, knowing that they got the ball rolling by coming up with the hashtag in the first place.  Everyone's had a laugh and pushed each other further, but by the very act of being selfish, they have promoted the basic message.

There's something in that.
 

NeuroMarketing: This is crazy, but I'm @GoDaddy, So Use Me Maybe?

Hey! I just met you - and this is crazy - but I'm @GoDaddy, so use me, maybe?

It all connects - we just have to look beyond the cells of our limbic panopticons to see how.

Hack the Hippocampus: Memory Principles for Ads

Rita J. King

EVP, Science House

 

You may never forget the GoDaddy kiss, but were any of the Super Bowl ads memorable for the right reasons?

“The GoDaddy kiss is pretty hard to shake,” Adam Albrecht, Chief Creative Officer at Engauge, told me. “It featured a passionate, if not shocking kiss between two complete opposites. Depending on which side of the lunchroom you sat on in high school the kiss was either horrifying or a fantasy come true. But this uber-awkward kiss demonstrated exactly how GoDaddy wants you to think about their brand. And as hard as I try, I'm not sure I'll ever be able to erase the image or the message behind it from my memory.”

Yes, that kiss will be hard to shake — but does such a technique create a memorable message, or just a memorable ad? With ads costing $3.8 million dollars per thirty second spot (that’s over $4,000 per frame) can companies afford to overlook the ad’s sole mission: highlighting the product, service or brand and not just the ad itself?

I’ve recently been collaborating with Memory Layer, a company that works with brands and ad agencies on creating memory in ads. Memory experts James Jorasch and Chris Harwood have designed a system for improving the memorability of ads. Memory Layer “hacks the hippocampus,” (the part of the brain that lets memories in) through five principles of memory. Here’s a glimpse of the Principle WHEEL of Memory (weight, harmony, entanglement, engagement and leveraged attention) from Memory Layer, and how these principles relate to a few of this year’s Super Bowl spots:

Weight  The brain evolved to see the world through the senses, so abstract ideas that cannot be directly sensed carry little value. Instead, tangible weight must be given to an idea. Two commercials this year demonstrated this principle well. Tide’s “Miracle Stain” took the lowly stain and raised it to exalted levels - creating a solid image in the mind of the audience.

Although the first GoDaddy ad is getting all the attention, its second spot, “Your Big Idea,” succeeded in turning an abstract notion into a concrete vision. It takes the possibility of someone else stealing a great idea and filing for a domain name before you and turns into the vision of what could have been if only you had acted. By showing people in other parts of the world all talking about the same idea, the spot makes the rush to move first on an idea tangible. In classic GoDaddy style, the reward is obnoxiously portrayed by a cackling winner on his private jet--but the point is made.

Harmony  Like a crew rowing in unison, the elements of an ad should operate toward a single key message. When the elements are more organized and harmonious, the brain is better able to process the message. One of the best examples of this principle in this years lineup of ads is Best Buy’s “Asking Amy” spot. Amy Poehler has lots of questions about the products. The Best Buy employee dutifully follows her around to answer them. While most of the answers are never shown, they are implied, and Amy leaves the store happy and thankful. Best Buy is advertising the expertise of their staff, which shows in the knowledgable and patient service provided in this commercial.

Entanglement  A commercial may be memorable without it being valuable, if what ends up being remembered is the content rather than the product or brand. You may remember a wish granting genie played by Kaley Cuoco, helping an average suburban family live out their wishes. But who or what was it for? Without firmly entangling the message to memorable content you end up with a $4 million showcase for the Big Bang Theory star and not an ad for the Toyota RAV4 in “Wish Granted.”

On the flip side is the Meatloaf-belting candy-coated commercial “Love Ballad.” The protagonist of the commercial is itself an M&M wrestling with the idea of love. In the first half, the M&M claims he would do anything for love and we see scenes of what that means to him. This is followed by what we humans want to do to the M&M’s we love: eat them in a variety of ways. This is something that he won’t do. You cannot remove the M&M from the story without ruining the narrative, as the narrative is dependent on the candy.

Engagement  In order for an advertisement to be truly experienced it must engage the audience. The more the viewers imagine, the more of the brain is used and in turn the more memorable the message becomes. The Mercedes-Benz “Soul” ad for their all-new CLA car succeeded brilliantly here, encouraging viewers to dream along with the protagonist as he envisions a future of the benefits associated with the car: riches, love, fame and adventure, offered to him in a deal with the devil played by Willem Dafoe. The audience is right there with him as a vision of the future (which includes Usher and Kate Upton) unfolds. In the end he sees, through the window, a billboard with the car’s reasonable price on it. Since he realizes that the glories promised by the car are within his reach and budget, he doesn’t need the tempting deal with the devil to own it.

Leveraged Attention  With millions of people watching a Super Bowl ad, this attention is far more valuable when it is leveraged to help remember the message. Hyundai had two commercials that used their attention in vastly different ways. The first, “Epic Playdate”, squandered most of it. It lent its focus to the guest band and the crazy antics an average suburban family can have in a day. Only after the frenetic action of the commercial do we really focus on the car, and then only for a couple of seconds. Hyundai’s “Stuck” commercial, however, took advantage of attention to bring the feature of the Sonata to the fore, illustrating why the turbo feature is helpful by having the action of the ad focus on the car passing other highway nuisances.

@RitaJKing

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Politics - Gangnam Style!

Kim, 20, shot the video with a couple friends this week and uploaded it to YouTube Tuesday. To their mutual shock, it had more than 90,000 views by Thursday morning.

They shouldn't have really been surprised.  Like #tellviceverything before it, York U Gangam came with a built-in success factor; there is a huge appetite for fun, current and community-relevant online content.  People want to absorb it.  They want to be part of it.  Cool memes like Call Me Maybe are infectious and evolve rapidly - hence the term "viral." 

What's the message in this for political marketing?  The game is rapidly moving beyond the "stories sell" phase - it's time to start letting the audience become the message.  For maximum traction, make it music-video short or a one-sheet like a political cartoon; don't be afraid to put yourself out there; make it fun (light and respectful) and hard-wired into the social zeitgeist.  You can target a specific community, like the McGuinty Bollywood Spectacular did, but leave enough whimsy, variety and sheer coolness to appeal to a broader audience.

Put it simply; make it fresh, inclusive, diverse, fun and topical.  Canada should own this market.

... and it looks like I'm not the only one who feels that way!

John Ivison: So Call Me, Vader?

Hey I just met you
And this is crazy
But I'm your father
So join me maybe

John Ivison: Obama’s victory gives Harper an opportunity to thaw relationship with U.S. — and he should take it

 

Much of the world seems to regard the United States as a spent force, dismissing it as Darth Vader once did Obi Wan Kenobi: “Your powers are weak, old man.”

 

Funny enough, Star Wars is becoming uber-hot again.  Smart communicators are latching on to memes and trends and incorporating them into their messages and stories. 

 

Stories tell - but memes draw.

The Carly Rae Jepsen "Call Me Maybe" Meme: This is What Innovation Looks Like

Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you; here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes.

Who takes the time to make a Star Wars clip-collection to add to the Call Me Maybe meme? 

For that matter, who takes the time to crowd-source clips recreating the Star Wars movie?

What makes a person go to those whimsical lengths?  How many internal memory files, how much cognitive capacity to connect dots do you need to devise and follow through on something like this?  More to the point, what is it that makes Star Wars a social phenomenon that people want to be a part of?  Boiled down - what's the connection between creativity and society?

There are those who will say it's profit that drives us.  Seriously, though, are there not easier ways to make money?  Are initiatives like streetpianos.com really about making individual profit, or are they about something a bit more inclusive?  We human beings are hard-wired to feel part of something larger than ourselves.  At some level, we all have an inkling there's some force that penetrates us, binds the galaxy together.  We want skin in that game; we want legacy.  We want to consciously be part of the whole. 

Live theatre builds an audience of experience out of a group of individuals.  Movie theatres, concerts, political rallies or religious and social ceremonies do the same thing.  Social media is the latest, broadest conduit, a social neural net that's connecting us and our collective lineages in ways never experienced before.  There is conflict from this clash, a hormonal reaction to challenge - but there is unparalleled neuro-synaptic creativity as well.  IDIC - the more diversity we're exposed to, the more tools we have to select from. 

The very process of wrapping our heads around the impacts of this diversity results in us connecting what we know to what we learn, bridging new gaps and expanding our cognitive puzzles a bit further.  That puzzle is what Don Tapscott would call Networked Intelligence - not the creation of a uniform culture under a one-world government, but an active harnessing of the fullness of human collective potential.  The whole, the social organism, is more than the sum of its individual parts.

We don't need to be afraid.  We don't have to get angry.  There is good in this world, and it's worth collaborating for.  When we work together, there's nothing we can't accomplish - we can even move mountains.  We just have to believe it.