As the thinking of the times is moving towards flexibility, diversity, gray areas, inclusivity and freedom from judgment, we are being posed with a whole new problem to solve. That of making ourselves self aware enough to be able to choose our own identity from the matrix of options that have now opened up and celebrated or reconciled with. When the world operated largely in binary, it was a harsher world but things were less complex. We win some, we lose some, as they say. People of a younger bend of mind are more than happy to embrace this complexity in exchange of an opportunity to be accepted for who they are. This includes their mental and physical vulnerabilities, sexual ambiguities and overall societal wins and loses. People with an older bend of mind tend to have one other lament from this mindset-change other than the loss of simplicity and that is the loss of jokes. This new way of thinking has made jokes themed around body weight, gender, skin colour, caste and race inappropriate, depriving a lot of people of their entire public personality and charm, stripping them of the only comic material that worked well for them for decades. Quite tragic. Meanwhile, are the celebrations on the other side of the fence bereft of internal conflict? Doesn’t look like it.
While individuality is being facilitated by the new world order of things, we are still as stuck as ever in the spider web of needing to belong. In other words, be followed, engaged with and be widely shared. Social media apps and their algorithms are perhaps pushing people in line as they wander off in various directions in their respective existential pursuits. We live in times where we have the resources to easily find validation for our finger-print identity but at the same time are also forced to follow set regimes to be able to access that validation. A validation, the absence of which makes us susceptible to falling down a lonely rabbit hole. That can’t be fun.
The times call for being authentic but also very algorithmic. This causes an internal tug of war, whether or not we are conscious of it. There is no doubt that the rising wave of individual validation is a hugely forceful one, evident from saree clad women hula-hooping, heterosexual men championing make-up for men, asexuality being added on the sexuality spectrum to name a few. Social media apps are at the same time the generator of this storm and also the guardrails for it.
It is debatable whether social media is the enabler of this change in our mindsets or not but there is no debate that it is near impossible to stay connected without social media. Connection is everything. Good, positive connection of course. Without dancing to the tunes of the algorithmic needs, there is no way to truly connect. This holds equally true for brands too.
Before it was just about the right message, today is as much, if not more, about the platform you convey the message on. Getting the identity, tonality and messaging right such that it pulses right with the times is only only one part of the task. The larger task is to cater to social media algorithms and digital marketing needs, to ensure a connection with people. LinkedIn, Instagram, blogs, websites, podcasts, Snapchat each have their own completely different language and tonality. How do we reconcile this with the tonality and language of the brand? We are heading for times when consumer brands will need to re-work their brand playbook and make it a truly playful one. If content is king. Platform algorithm is God.
Legacy brands and advertising agencies will struggle with this the most given that brands were accustomed to safeguarding a brand’s guidelines. The role of brand custodians becomes figuring out how to ensure brands stay ‘on brand’ while being ‘on platform’. That will make it a brand on fleek. At both an individual and brand level, the coming times essentially give us an opportunity to explore our identities further while also making us vulnerable to losing our ‘custody’ of it.
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