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