WHY MODERNIST MEDIA SOLUTIONS ARE FAILING IN A POSTMODERN WORLD

Managing the Paradigm Shift

Richard Wilson

| Background | Reconciling Image and Experience | The Media Hub| Brand Tribalism | A New Media Approach |
| The Rise of the Active Consumer | Conclusion |

This paper demonstrates that harmonisation is no longer valid given the fragmentation and subsequent reconstruction of conventional media around a new media hub, the Internet. It argues that harmonisation is a modernist concept fumbling around in a postmodernist world. It describes how conventional media are collapsing into this single digital media hub attached to which are an infinite number of nodes. This paper also puts forward the notion that these nodes are in fact media pathways travelled by members of an indefinite number of "brand tribes". Each of these is guided by the values that their brands symbolise. A brand can be any respected or valued item such as membership of a great city as well as a group with a common occupation. The writer proposes that these brand tribes assume a major role in redefining who we are as individuals. If this is so, then it follows that relevant media will soon be defined by the brand rather than a brand being defined by particular media.

INTRODUCTION

The collapse of conventional media into the Internet is moving at a steadily increasing pace forcing people to personalise their media experiences by seeking subject matter rather than reading matter. Notwithstanding this dramatic shift in media habits, many media researchers continue to drive for harmonisation of the current measures which will need dramatic overhaul if they are to take account of Net consumption of magazines, movies, pay-per-views over the net, not to mention radio, music and book reading along with other previously conventionally managed and measured activities.

 

BACKGROUND— MODERNISM VS. POSTMODERNISM Back to top

Over the last thirty years or so, the term "postmodernism" has been used across all fields of learning despite very few writers accepting the mantle of postmodernist. Whether self-acknowledged or not, most postmodern writers agree postmodernism is characterised by an intense distrust of all things universal. It emphasizes the individual rather than the state or community. It contrasts sharply with "modernism", the social model which emerged in the affluent nations during the seventeenth century and which took its final shape late in the nineteenth century. Modernism espouses the rule of reason and the establishment of rational order. Its basic tenet is to reduce complexity to its smallest unit. Each process consists of a series of linear steps and the process can always be repeated. The traditional image of how a computer works fits this paradigm, i.e. the user inputs data that travels through a series of process steps until it is finally returned to the user as output. There is a logical method at the root of modernism and this is what helps us to understand the world as it really is.

INPUT --> Process Step 1 --> Process Step 2 --> Process Step 3 --> OUTPUT

Modernism says the future is progress and truth is universal. Postmodernism, on the other hand, says the future is change and your truth and mine are likely to be different although both equally the truth. Witness the O.J. trial. To the majority of whites, the decision was an outrage, yet the majority of blacks were jubilant. Truth, argues the postmodernist, is not universal.

Modernism is American – it built the United States. Postmodernism is European emerging with force after the deconstruction of Europe caused by World War II.

 

RECONCILING IMAGE AND EXPERIENCEBack to top

Postmodernism comes with a "social plug-in" known as hyper-reality; a condition in which reality collapses to re-emerge exclusively as image, illusion or simulation, a kind of global 'Disneyfication' in which marketers design the games but are unable to control or understand the outcomes. In short, the image becomes the product we consume.

Baudrillard (1996)[1], arguably the leader of the current European postmodernist movement, talks about turning reality into a spectacle, e.g. "the Gulf War brought to you by CNN" being a precursor to front row seats – WWIII! According to Baudrillard, the virtual takes over the real then replicates it without modification.

"Reality", he argues,  "has been transformed into an interactive performance – some kind of Lunapark [sic] for ideologies, technologies, works, death and even destruction. Disney (the company) is not only interested in erasing the real by turning it into a three dimensional virtual image with no depth but it also seeks to erase time by synchronising all the periods, cultures in a single travelling motion by juxtaposing them in a single scenario. Collapse of time is the fourth dimension – the dimension of the virtual. It is more and more difficult for us to imagine the real, history, the depth of time, or three-dimensional space just as before it was difficult from our real world perspective to imagine a virtual universe or the fourth dimension."

This may not be entirely the fault of Disney. Elsewhere, Baudrillard (1992)[2] ponders:

"Could it be that deep down there may never have been a linear unfolding of history…everything moves in loops and curls…Everything takes place in effects that short-circuit cause, in perverse events, in ironic turnarounds."

IS THE INTERNET CAPABLE OF TURNING OUR WORLD INSIDE OUT?

Writer Mark Nunes (1995)[3] argues:

"In its current configuration the "Net" does more than network the globe; it creates a metaphorical world in which we conduct our lives. The Internet provides us with a site for exploring the world. Baudrillard sees the Internet as a kind of cybernetic terrain working to undermine the distance between reality and metaphor. It abandons reality for hyper-reality by presentingincreasingly real simulation of a comprehensive and comprehendible world."

Time Travel via the Internet

As highways one time transformed our country, cyber highways now cross a virtual landscape, which enables us to collapse time forward or back to any century and move from one locality to another with the click of a mouse. The information superhighway passes into history as we install our own cyber freeway to destinations of both time and place – simulated (movie or electronic game) or real (Gulf War, Sarajevo, Belfast).

For Baudrillard (l988)[4], the screen becomes the 'satellisation of the real' by achieving the escape velocity of hyper-reality. That which was previously mentally projected, which was lived as a metaphor in the terrestrial habitat is from now on projected entirely without metaphor, into absolute space of simulation. 'Where all trips have already taken place … a virtual potential space replaces real space – your world becomes the screen

From this critical perspective, the Internet collapses space into one "hyper-potential point" which implodes all concepts of distance, spacing and separation. (Baudrillard, l993)[5]. (The writer chooses to call this the media hub). The Internet creates and maintains its own simulated world in place of the physical world of time and space. Millions of businesses around the world have scrambled to open shop in this virtual world.

 

THE MEDIA HUBBack to top

Today, we can read our magazines and newspapers, or at least those sections we are interested in, on the Net. We can also listen to radio from anywhere in the world. We can watch TV, movies, videos, and listen to the latest music of any style. We can visit a library, read book reviews or review the latest Broadway shows. We can even check tonight's menu at a leading Paris restaurant. We can also experience non-conventional media such as the underground press via the Net. We experience advertising through Net banners and full screens. With virtual shopping, we might also experience point of sale and display as well as other forms of advertising. With the exception of what is called ambient media (passive outdoor/indoor media; media as we know it is collapsing into one continuous digital stream and rebuilding itself in the form of an amorphous media mass or hub from which protrude an infinite number nodes – gateways to information or entertainment. However, these nodes are no longer media vehicles in their own right – rather they are guideposts for the cyber-traveller. No longer is a medium in itself a pathway, because media are fragmented. A pathway might consist of one or two contextually appropriate TV programs, one article in a magazine or the daily stock report in the newspaper. The consumer seizes bits from here and there then moves on. On the whole, mass media are no longer able to offer the guideposts to the customer they once did.

In Place of Media in its Traditional Form

As conventional media in its traditional form become less and less what we are seeking, another guide to the universe is needed. Perhaps several guides. These guides, the writer argues, are in fact the brands or symbols that we believe in. There may be several brands that occupy a special place in our life and each holds sway over a particular aspect of our life – small or large.

 

BRAND TRIBALISMBack to top

Citing the rise of individualism from the postmodernist writings, market practitioner Bernard Cova[6] depicts postmodern society as a network of micro-cultures or tribes and the postmodern individual as able to belong to several tribes. In each he plays a different role and wears a specific mask. In each he uses media differently as does his receptivity to particular types of messages differ. Marketing ethnography becomes the new segmentation and market anthropology the method of investigation. "Tribes" or more correctly, sub-cultures of consumption, says Cova, provide opportunities for marketers to build symbolic relationships with their customers. Marketers who understand the structure and ethos of a sub-culture of consumption can profit greatly by serving its needs with not only products and services but also with all of the flow-ons.

These tribal segments vary by product category. There is no universal solution. A Harley Davidson owner may also be a stockbroker or minister religion and have nothing more in common with other Harley owners than the shared consumption experience of riding a Harley. The primary role research here is to draw out the relevant "tribal symbols" for assigning meaning to the brand being advertised. These symbols may hold important keys to communication strategies under this new paradigm.

Consider the Italian coffee, Lavazza. This very popular brand may be a gateway to the sale of many other products or services – in other words, a media vehicle in its own right through which an advertiser may choose to se his message. For example, if members of the Lavazza brand tribe believe it to be a great coffee, then they might also place great faith in the Lavazza Company if it were to provide a guide to Italian cafes and restaurants. Maybe tribe members would also believe Lavazza if it were to recommend a particular tour company for Italy, a chain of hotels, or anything to do with hospitality, food and lifestyle in Italy. However, they would not necessarily regard it as an impeccable source when it came to choosing an Italian car or bank. Here, another tribe would be sought by a prospective advertiser.

So, the advertising vehicle in this instance is not the medium but the brand. In short, the brand becomes the medium for other advertisers and the media we identify through understanding the habits of the brand tribe.

MEDIA MEASUREMENT WHEN THE BRAND IS THE MEDIUM

If the brand does become the medium, then this provides us with an entirely different problem when it comes to media measurement; not the least of which is the relevance of harmonisation. As researchers, we need to understand how people and specifically, nominated tribe members use media. We have to understand which brands are important to them and how these brands connect with the components of media relevant to them.

Is the Medium Still the Message?

It was not that long ago that McLuhan was espousing that the "medium was the message". In the world of cyber-reality, it may well be that the brand is the message. After we have established the level of association between the brand and the individual, we can then determine whether an individual is or potentially could be a member of a particular brand tribe. It is the goal of all advertisers to win members to their brand tribe. This means much more than buying the brand. As a brand tribe member we seek guideposts for a range of kindred activities that are shared with like-minded individuals notwithstanding that such like-minded individuals have little else in common. It must be the goal of the media to attach various vehicles or elements of media vehicles to brands and brand tribes to work as the tools of the tribe. Through the work being done with Panorama, we will be able to establish the extent of linkage between the brand, the user and the elements that are under the control of the tribe.

 

A NEW MEDIA APPROACHBack to top

How might this work? Take an airline such as United Airlines. In planning a specific campaign on business travel, United may assemble through link-­analysis, a series of like-brand tribes (high association brands) which are capable of selling a specific, or a series of specific travel packages – in other words a series of linked brands become the media through which United Airlines advertises. This directly exploits the links between the relevant brand tribes and their interest in travel. A series of packages are developed to appeal to the brand tribes with linkages into air travel. United Airlines markets its tailored business packages via the Internet to the relevant brand tribes which themselves become the United Airlines media vehicles. It is therefore imperative for long-term survival that the media begin a process of providing the tribal tools for the various brand tribes. (Imagine looking at the Coke web site to determine which brand of street wear to buy, the latest rock stars due in town and special fast food offers for the month).

Branding

So if the brand is to take on an elevated status as a medium in its own right, then the onus is on the advertiser or brand owner to raise his brand to tribal status. This may not always be an easy task. With functional product differences shrinking, consumers are making more and more buying decisions according to image. Advertising supports those images. Technology, once the enfant merveilleux of the modernists, is purely a means to create and to deliver those images.

Branding is the cornerstone of postmodernist marketing theory. Through branding, the manufacturer ads value to his products and builds an advantage over competitors. Branding endows a product with a specific and distinctive identity – its personality. People perceive that unique mix of values represented by the Levis' brand as different from anything else in the market. This differentiation creates the tribal pull proposed. It does not come from tangible aspects such as feel or price but though intangibles such as packaging, name, brand identification through symbolism and brand personality.

Measuring the Power of Brands and Brand Tribes

So how might the extent to which a brand can form its own tribe be measured? The key is in identifying the level of association between the brand and the user, and then understanding the critical links that brand association drives.

Types of questions, such as those shown in Figure 1 below, are being tested in Panorama at the present time.

This information is combined with several other new indices such as "Life Diary”[7] and Media-Brand Connectivity Index to profile the "tribe" and its important links with other "tribes" as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 1: MEASURING THE STRENGTH OF ASSOCIATION WITH BRANDS

 

First

Next

 

Circle each of the groups you belong to

Circle how close you feel that you are to each of these groups

Groups

 

Very close

Fairly close

Not at all close

Regular Smokers

01

1

2

3

Peter Jackson Smokers

02

1

2

3

Scotch Drinkers

03

1

2

3

Johnnie Walker Drinkers

04

1

2

3

Aussie Rules Supporters

05

1

2

3

Sydney Swans Supporters

06

1

2

3

Coke Drinkers

07

1

2

3

Pepsi Drinkers

08

1

2

3

KFC Visitors

09

1

2

3

Etc.

        

Figure 2: PROFILING THE TRIBE AND ITS LINKS WITH OTHER TRIBES

Establish who uses your brand

 

Establish the extent of association with your brand

 

Profile the links to other strong association brands

Which other brands are important to your committed brand user

 

Profile the target brand user in terms of attitudes, media connectivity and other relevant issues including Internet usage and how it is affecting consumption of conventional media, e.g. was it on the Net that you read the Australian or did you read the newspaper?

 

Identify media brand connections where the associations are high profile for the brand tribes in terms of traditional measures, e.g. demographics, Life Diary, Media-Brand Connectivity, etc.

The new role for advertising

This new approach will demand a new role from advertising. Advertising gives culturally acceptable meaning to products. Marketing academic Bernard Cova (Indiana University)[8] points out that through advertising, virtually any product can take on any meaning. Cova says:

"In postmodernity, advertising is a means of delivering meaning from the world we know and understand to a brand or product."

In other words, advertisers create a personality for a brand from the feelings an individual assigns to a positive set of experiences associated with the context in which the product might be consumed e.g. how I feel when I eat a particular brand of hot dog at a football match and my team is winning. Our ability to convey these messages also demands a far more interactive media experience.

 

THE RISE OF THE ACTIVE CONSUMER AND THE ACTIVE
CONSUMPTION EXPERIENCE — CUSTOMER PARTICIPATIONBack to top

In postmodernity, customers are far from a passive target for image marketing. They are an active link in the continual production of meaning. They demand a marketing approach that emphasizes interactivity and creativity; one that enables them to exercise real control over the image created. This applies even greater demands on media strategy.

Participation is the essence of postmodernity. Postmodern methods are based on marketer participation with customers allowing us to observe how the meaning in objects is transferred to them. The meaning ascribed to products or services is often related to experiences and rituals. These represent one of the best collective opportunities to affirm or revise meaning.

Companies managing this transition are attempting to create interactive experiences at all levels of consumption of their brands using both one to one marketing and tribal symbolism but are yet to understand the full ramifications of their actions or why they may be so successful.

 

CONCLUSIONBack to top

The collapse of conventional media into the Internet is moving at a steadily increasing pace forcing people to personalise their media experiences by seeking subject matter rather than reading matter. Notwithstanding this dramatic shift in media habits many media researchers continue to drive for harmonisation of the current measures, which will need dramatic overhaul if they are to take account of Net consumption of magazines, movies, pay-per-views over the net, not to mention radio, music and book reading and ultimately TV viewing.

Harmonisation is no longer as relevant because of the fragmentation and subsequent re-construction of conventional media around a new media hub we call the Internet. Around this hub are an infinite number of nodes that the writer proposes are in fact media pathways travelled by members of an indeterminate number of "brand tribes". Each of these tribes is guided by the values that their brands symbolise. These brand tribes assume a major role in redefining who we are as individuals and if this is so, then it follows that media will soon be defined by the brand tribe rather than the brand being defined by particular media vehicles which may deliver up some of its audience.

Media vehicles per se will increasingly become part of the range of brand tribe experiences defined by the values attached to the brand and relevant to all other brands and services, which involve those values or symbols. If we are to convey our message to the postmodernist consumer we need to identify the powerful tribes, the relevant tribal values and evaluate the level of interactivity as the measured outcome for advertising effectiveness.

FOOTNOTES

  1. Disneyworld Company – Jean Baudrillard, Liberator, Paris March 4, 1996.
  2. Baudrillard J. "L' Illusion de la fin: ou La greve des evenements" Paris: Galilee, 1992.
  3. Nunes Mark – Baudrillard in Cyberspace: Internet, Virtuality and Postmodernity. This article first appeared in 'Style' 29, 1995 , pp3 14-327.
  4. Baudrillard Jean, The Ecstasy of Communication NY: Semiotext, 1988.
  5. Baudrillard Jean, The Transparency of Evil, NY ,Verso 1993.
  6. Cova Bernard, ("Postmodern explained to managers- Implications for marketing"; Business Horizons, Vol.39, No.6).
  7. A daily diary of events that put the individual into potential media connect spaces.
  8. Cova Bernard, ("Postmodern explained to managers – Implications for marketing"; Business Horizons, Vol.39, No.6)

| Background | Reconciling Image and Experience | The Media Hub| Brand Tribalism | A New Media Approach |
| The Rise of the Active Consumer | Conclusion |

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