Bell Biv Dafoe? NOW You Know

Because I’ve been neglecting my bloggilicious duties… have yourself a chuckle:

Edited: October 19th, 2009

For Brands, ‘Transparency’ is the new ‘Image’

The marketing strategy of the year award goes to… transparency. At its core, radical brand transparency is about being honest, sincere and direct with consumers, ousting the impersonal middle man, “no comment” snubs and canned responses in favor of a personal relationship with the public.

Who needs a spokesperson when your CEO can make the same announcements on your corporate blog? And fuck spell check, we’re transparent! Wild office holiday party caught on tape? Edit out the racial slurs and make it viral STAT! Actually, leave the racial slurs, condemn it publicly and make it a trending topic. We’re so transparent.

In the past, brands spent millions to determine, plan, create, and maintain an image. It was an era of brand opacity and controlling public perception using image was easy. At its worst, we call it propaganda:

But that kind of PR-opaganda is an inflatable raft: it’s gonna get holes and you can only patch them for so long before you sink. After some corporate soul searching, brands have had to learn to be OK with themselves, flaws and all. Enter: transparency.

But was transparency a strategic marketing move or a matter of if-ya-can’t-beat-’em-join-’em?

Companies want savvy, worthwhile employees. Savvy employees are on social networks. Worthwhile employees are influential on those networks. They become influential by being popular, and they become popular by being open books (aka transparent). Sure, discretion and tact still reign, but the standards of what’s acceptable have changed. And there’s always anonymity.

Then you have the public. You can’t cry libel over every bad Yelp review and when faced with a Twitterstorm of complaints about a new product, you can’t ignore it off the day’s trends. Being transparent means being hypervisible, dealing with crises head on and viewing them as opportunities to demonstrate poise and responsibility… publicly, of course.

Edited: October 1st, 2009