#TheDress and Jumping on a Trend

We’ve all heard of the #thedress phenomenon by now. A dress the changes colour depending on how you perceive it. Psychologically it’s very interesting. But what’s just as interesting from our perspective is the reaction of various brands and agencies to it – and what that says about the state of advertising.

First off, the creator of the dress (Roman Originals) has now released a white and gold version to mirror the original blue and black – capitalising on the moment and making use of the viral nature of the meme to create a (perhaps brief) trend. Since the meme began their sales have skyrocketed.

Meanwhile across the web various brands have referenced it, if nothing else to continue to be part of the conversation and engage their followers. (Again, social media is as much about keeping afloat as about getting ahead.)

Another interesting example is the Salvation Army spot by South African agency Ireland/Davenport that played on the meme to make a serious point about domestic abuse. It shows a model wearing the white and gold dress while covered in bruises, with the copy “Why is it so hard to see black and blue?” This ad actually was generated within the agency before searching for a charity to associate with – which if nothing else is a rebuke to those who say that advertising has no soul to it.

There’s a broader point to all of this. In a world of memes and trends and viral events, it can seem that advertisers are a bit passé, a bit out of step. The reality couldn’t be more different.

What advertising does is to ride the waves of trends and new events, to defend brands from risks and pitfalls. It also gives the opportunity, as with the S.A., to capture a moment and produce something that cuts through by speaking to people in a way that makes them listen at that moment – that is contextually relevant. After all, advertising is all about communicating with people in a way that engages with them.

Certainly the media world is changing beneath our feet. But while the medium and the method may change, advertising will always exist. Because advertising is not reliant on bricks and mortar. Advertising is about communication, and about communicating ideas. That is the core, and as long as you communicate it, you’re in advertising.

Social Media and the Absence of Negatives

Social media, by the headlines in the trade press and the regular press, carries some hefty negatives for brands which engage in it.

Just yesterday Dunkin’ Donuts was caught out by a tweeted image of the Liverpool Football Club’s emblem which had been edited to be a bit of a silly Dunkin’ style graphic.

To do so they edited out the Eternal Flames on the emblem which commemorate those killed in the Hillsborough disaster.

Not the wisest of decisions.

With the internet being what it is, any mistake made by a brand can be captured and repeated and paraded across the world in moments – instant tsunamis of disapproval sweeping away months of built-up good faith.

This pattern has played out across multiple channels, many brands, and is simply a part of the fabric of social advertising at the point.

But why do brands take on the risk of such a fast-paced media? It’s not as though they gain much out of it. It’s rare to see many brands using social media for the purpose of direct sales. Most of the time it’s simply for branding purposes.

The answer is, to a large degree, to remove a negative.

Social media isn’t generally much of a positive. But the absence of social media is a real negative for brands which ignore it. It’s as much to show face as to show an attractive face.

As with the Burberry case earlier, being in control and being consistent in your brand voice are key. Social media is about defending your brand and not ceding the territory – either to other brands in the market or to negative perceptions of a poorly done and underfunded social presence.

Now, of course there is the viral quality of social media. This can cut both ways and can be a huge benefit in terms of awareness, certainly if you’re a large brand. But it’s hard to build a campaign around a hypothetical viral success, especially now that every brand and its mother (parent company?) are trying to do the same. These things have a limited predictability.

So how do you consistent succeed at social media? Again, it’s all about removing negatives. Successful social media is in large part simply about consistency, and thoroughness. Slipping up is both more likely and more dangerous. You just have to be careful, constantly.

Which is why brand social media is generally either dull or wildly controversial.

Which is why brand social media is so often just a game of damage limitation.

Gawker: Making the World a Worse Place

Coca Cola made a tie-in social media project for its Superbowl campaign. It wasn't anything gratuitous, just a funny Twitter program that changed negative tweets into funny text shapes. Something to make online trolling a bit less negative, to spin things around, to inject some happiness.

How dare they.

Gawker wouldn't stand for such behaviour, and so they tricked Coke's program into tweeting images using bits of text from Hitler's Mein Kampf. When Coke found the tweets, and with people complaining, they deleted them, and halted the campaign. And so a campaign designed to fight back against the pervasive negativity of so much of the internet was destroyed by the pervasive negativity of the internet.

Thanks for that one Gawker.