Post on 09-May-2015
Spreadable Media
“our creative process has us watering down ideas in pursuit of the broadest possible net, when every day the human being is seeking the opposite”
Tim Stock, scenarioDNA
Some History
We are super social apes
We form tribes around shared interests
We change our behaviour by copying others
We rely on other opinions to guide our own
Community dislocation
Mass urbanisation caused a breakdown in social bonds
The rise of free time
Advanced industrialisation created mass free time...
...for the first time
Mass media
Which was filled by mass media, rather than people...
...as people were limited by location, but media weren’t
Now we aren’t limited by location
Our free time can focus on what we are really interested in
Other people
Timeline
P2P media
Mass Media
1600 1700 1800 1900 2000
Mass P2P Media
Pre-Industrial age Industrialisation Post War Internet Age
Media Economics
1968 2011
$0
$High
Cost of media
Amount of media
Scarce
Infinite
Attention Economics
Media planning is based on media scarcity
Value is monetary
But infinite media has no monetary value
.... The resource it consumes is attention
How to plan for attention economies
We aren’t looking in the right place
Totally Generic Information
Demographics are about similarity
People are about individuality
Yes, we are all individuals
Averages by nature are not differentiating
Our individuality makes us human
Richness
Nobody ever comes out of a movie saying “that was a really good
movie. I really enjoyed it. It was
really clear”Russell Davies
To succeed, ideas move from ‘Big, Simple, Single’
To ‘Niche, Many Rich’
The intersection of rational and herd behaviour
Cultural copying Statements of individuality
Being human
Who we are Who we aspire to be
People distribute niche ideas
We understand the subtle nuances of our communities
And we change the message accordingly
Because it is really easy.....
Recontextualising used to be high culture
Quoting and referencing as a literary technique
Recontextualising existing frame of reference
T.S.Eliot
Now anyone can do this
Remixing took immense skill in the analogue world
Creating new culture by combining and recontextualising
Grandmaster Flash
Now the tools are on every computer
How can brands inspire this behaviour?
Brands can’t create communities
An influential match?
Or the right conditions for fires
What lights the fire?
Influence isn’t done by the influencer
Who influenced who?
And who chose to copy who?
We learn by copying others.....
But we’ve been trained not to admit it
(to teachers or to qualitative researchers)
How things spread
How things spread
“As content spreads it gets remade, either literally through sampling and
remixing, or figuratively via its insertion into conversations and interactions”
Professor Henry Jenkins, Spreadable Media (2009)
Literally
Literally
Figuratively
Simples!
Content is a means not an end
People spend time in social networks because of people
Content is just something to talk about
How things spread
“If we want to predict what will spread, we have to develop a fuller understanding of
the ways that the circulation of information may strengthen or damage
social relations”
Confer Status
Strengthen bonds
Define the community
Professor Henry Jenkins, Spreadable Media (2009)
Humour
The message is
‘I’m a funny guy’
A joke is a medium not a message.
The joke is the means by which you transmit
this information
The physical act of sharing humour
strengthens bonds
Confirming that subject is a shared source of humour
defines who is in and out of the community
Designing for communities
NB – slide blatantly lifted from Mike Arauz’s Design for Networks
What happened next
NB – slide blatantly lifted from Mike Arauz’s Design for Networks
Why?
Designed to appeal to a number of niches
Conferring status and belonging on each
NB – slide blatantly lifted from Mike Arauz’s Design for Networks
So spreadable media is inherently creative
Media positive
Media Neutral
Personalisation to share
Personalisation unique to you
A big incentive
Richness
Famous for fifteen people
Aggregating niche communities
Giving community leaders a larger platform
Confers status, strengthens bonds
Product + Big Incentive
Advertising is not what you do....
Advertising is the last thing you should do
...it’s how you tell people what you’ve done
All the above