An earlier post’s title was reasonably self explanatory -“Convenience & Choices“, but to summarise, I had dwelt on the abundance of choice we have on all fronts these days, and its (inverse) relationship with conscious choice. I’d quoted from a wonderful article on the death of video stores, The enemy of video stores was convenience. The victim of convenience is conscious choice. The post was subjective, and more a consumer/individual perspective, but what does it to the supply side, or specifically, brands?
Would it be fair to say that convenience is an enemy of brands as well? Let me explain. There are ‘brands’ that have been built on the proposition of convenience. Given the internet’s penchant for eliminating middlemen who do not provide its kind of value, and its ability to create convenient interfaces, everything from Google and Amazon downwards is built on the idea of convenience. That’s not what I am talking of. My line of thought is whether convenience (also) leads to a certain kind of commoditisation – it becomes not so much about what I want, but more about how easily I am getting it. So long as the product/service is comparable in terms of price and value proposition, and not necessarily superior, I’d be fine. The premium is on ease and time, and not on the brand/product.
But maybe there is a middle path, where the abundance of choice is layered with customisation. Amazon, I have experienced, does this well in patches. Great on televisions, and surprisingly bad with books! (I think it doesn’t have enough data on me with regards to the latter) It doesn’t follow me around the web (retargeting) instead sends me a mail with relevant recommendations for the product I’ve been browsing on their site. But the brand I am really a fan of in this context is Netflix. There is a vast amount of content, and from it, Netflix starts throwing at me stuff that is relevant. I hadn’t heard of either The Bletchley Circle or Broadchurch but totally loved both the recommendations. (read) And that increased by resonance with brand Netflix.
Brand building and media are intrinsically tied together, even in the era of digital. In the last few pages of Finite & Infinite Games, and in a totally different context, there is a nuance that James Carse brings out – the difference between resonance and amplification. Pull vs push, broadly. Interestingly, digital offers both opportunities to brands. You could either collect and use data intelligently, or you could spray generic ads across the web. In many cases,the ‘ease’ factor results in media (largely) being used to create a surround sound effect rather than a data-based micro targeted approach. In my case, both Amazon and Netflix are using relevance to build resonance, and easily winning.
(borrowed from a Sony ad)
There is an interesting way to describe ‘brand’. When there is an abundance of choice, and all purchase-related factors are comparable, why would a consumer choose one product/service over another? Arguably, that ingredient is brand. It is an umbrella term that could describe the product, experience, emotion and so on. It can be built in many ways. Broadly, amplification builds on convenience, and resonance builds on conscious choices. One is a finite game, and the other is infinite. Digital media has helped brands build reach, and in some cases where data is used well, even relevance. But it also fools itself by claiming to be going after ROI, when it means Return on Spend. (the difference is the timeframe) Resonance, I think, will require an investment, and the relatively ‘infinite’ game it is playing, will be brand building.
P.S. There is a layer I wanted to add to this, but the post is already long! I’ll write about the role of AI in all of this in a bit.