The chicken or the egg

Following my last blog post, I had a great discussion in the LinkedIn comments with a Creative Director called Marcus. We discussed the topic of my blog, and he added some really great points.

You can check out the post, and what we said, here.

Somehow during the discussion, we got onto the different channels – maybe the lack of funny advertising is actually due to the content being made to work across so many channels?

Marcus made the point of Social Media being “pedestrian and safe” and being “all about quantity and speed.” I couldn’t agree more.

But this got me thinking… and it’s these thoughts that are the subject of today’s post.

It’s very true that social channels (even more so than everything else) have become very safe and plain in terms of the ads that appear. It’s certainly about speed and quantity on those platforms, if you want to ensure eyeballs-on-content.

But the reason for this is a bit of a chicken or the egg situation.

Are the sites inherently built for speed and quantity, and therefore it’s the only thing we can do? Or is it because of our focus on pumping out generic content, that we’re now in a speed and quantity arms race with each other?

The algorithms themselves, on paper, don’t necessarily dictate that those two things are the only way. If you can build a very engaged audience using more interesting content, and your ads get good interaction, quantity and speed aren’t quite so necessary.

But how many brands are able to build that audience? Is it even possible to build that audience, given what we have just said about the norm on those platforms?

And now we’re back to the chicken or the egg…

Is there any room to break out of this norm? Sure, everyone wants to make better work (I hope), but if breaking from the norm means the ads gets crap results, who’s really won?

According to your boss, not you.

This is particularly true with more interesting brand building content, particularly when combined with our strange obsession with the short term.

Is this something that we are doing to ourselves, or are we helpless to the forces that these platforms are built on – that’s what it comes down to.

My answer is… a bit of both. But I think the second part is most of it, and we just add the icing to the cake.

I think we should accept that, to an extent, these channels are not inherently built for the process of building a brand. They just aren’t created with that type of content in mind. The infinite scroll, the emphasis on people over businesses – there are so many features that are created for the opposite to commercial brand building.

Also, the sheer quantity of information and content people view when they spend time on the sites makes convincing people to view/engage with something more brand orientated, very tough.

It has to be about quantity and speed, because they’ve made it so.

But as I said, we’ve played our part. Because these sites are built like this, our own obsession with this type of digital advertising has worsened it considerably. With just the way the platforms are built, the odds are against the brand builders.

When you factor in the ads that most of us create, it’s pretty much out of the question.

It irritates me. In general, many other channels have been utilised for both long and short term marketing. It was about what was involved that dictated which. Now, we have these channels that try to dictate that it’s short term from the start.

How frustrating.

But this is the frustration that causes me to try and fight against it. No matter what the channels want, or what our industry is a fan of, I will always try and use social media for brand building with any brands I work with.

And, despite it being a fight sometimes, I think its been a success.

Because it is possible. We can do it. Sure, it may involve a bit of a metrics-based hit here and there. Oh, and you’ll struggle to get people on board.

But it can be done.

It’ll be a fight, but what do you expect? They’re not built for it.