ICONSMASHER

I love this article from R/GA’s Bob Greenberg on the shift from classic marketing messaging - creating a short burst message that distills the essence of a projcet and captures an emotional state - towards a product-centric approach that will feature more demo’s.  How else could you explain a Tivo?  Or an iPhone.  In fact, TBWA’s campaigns for iPhone have been all about the product in action, not about how iPhone makes you feel. Bob, you’ve still got it.

Web-centric companies like Organic spend a lot of digital ink chronicling the ways that the Internet is driving cultural change.  Social networking in particular is a unique web phenomenon that has  profound implications for the way that modern humans interact with one another.

But after a vacation spent entirely offline, I’ve had a chance to think about the way that the web can simply reflect rather than drive popular culture.

A great example is product scarcity.  (Forced) exclusivity is an important trend in traditional retailing that is finding expression online, which is ironic since the promise of the web is normally about ubiquity and ready access of products and services.  Invitation-only Gmail was one of the first web-only services to break this rule.

But among hip-hop brands, particularly high-end sneakers and clothing, limited runs are standard.  At the Adidas Originals Store in Soho, for example, retailers hang up an article of clothing on a chalkboard and keep a running total of how many were sold and how many are left in stock.

And next month, New York’s sneaker and sportswear pilgrimage site Training Camp will open the Complex Platinum Club inside the store.  A joint venture between Training Camp and Complex magazine, the store will sell limited-edition sneakers, cellphones, and other street status items to celebrities and tastemakers who qualify for VIP status.

The web’s response is Privé, an invitation-only section of Forzieri.com, an online purveyor of luxury fashion goods.  Forzieri’s best customers will have access to exclusives and limited editions of designer merchandise.  “It’s like going to a popular night club,” said founder Andrea Forzieri.  “When the bouncer refuses you entry, you want more than anything to get in.”

I’m undecided about whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, but it’s clearly a countervailing trend online that borrows from the offline world.  And are there other great examples of online exclusivity out there?

[Photo credit: gillianleigh]

Note: this post originally appeared on ThreeMinds.com on 02/26/07

Malcolm Gladwell of Tipping Point/ Blink fame has a new book coming out.  Outliers: The Story of Success.

“In this stunning new book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of “outliers”—the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different? His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band.”

This piece in the New Yorker is an appetizer.  It talks about the myth of genius in scientific discovery and the fact that big ideas are perhaps not rare at all.  More than a hundred of sciences great discoveries- the telephone, calculus, evolution- were discovered simultaneously by different people.  If great ideas are in the air, does it mean that we just have to have our eyes more open to them?

Warren Sukernek sent me this article from the NYT, Brave New World of Digital Intimacy.  Clive Thompson presents a really balanced view on social media and he does a nice job describing the links between Twitter, Facebook feeds, SMS etc, all tied up in creating “ambient awareness”.

When I last wrote about (being over) Twitter, I asked a similar basic question: “Are these weak tie relationships real relationships?”  And at the time, I found them wanting.  I’m not sure if my opinion has changed drastically, even though I still Tweet and post the occasional FB update. [Now that I’ve changed jobs, it’s particularly useful for keeping tabs on my old colleagues, although I have been surprised that word is still getting out that I have left Organic.  This is also how I heard about my cousin’s new baby, via his 20-something sister’s FB update.]

The best quote from this piece:

“For [people in their 20s], participation isn’t optional.  If you don’t dive in, other people will define who you are.  So you constantly stream your pictures, your thoughts, your relationship status and what you’re doing — right now! — if only to ensure the virtual version of you is accurate, or at least the one you want to present to the world.”

Meaning that we are back to small-town living- everybody in eveyone else’s business.  I think he kinds of skirts the issue of whether or not this is a good thing.

For me, I love the anonymity of urban life and I think for someone in this space I keep a relatively low digital profile (even as I just started a new blog!).  I pity those people in the generation behind me who feel exposed by social media even as they are simultaneously empowered.