Twitch, TikTok and YouTube: Is this the next era of branding?
A Brief Evolution of Marketing
In The Brand Gap, Marty Neumeier discusses a term called ‘tribal identification,’ where the trajectory of marketing is headed from functional benefits (“what it does”) to personal identity (“who you are”). He describes the general evolution as follows:
1900: The features, “What it has”
1925: The benefits, “What it does”
1950: The experience, “What you’ll feel”
2000: Identification, “Who you are”
2020 and beyond: ???
I believe Neumeier’s marketing evolution above is highly correlated with the historical events, cultural trends, and disruptions of our society. In the 1920s, consumerism was marked by mass production, and people bought more than they could afford, hence the sense of ‘false prosperity’ when the nation was actually in an economic depression. That’s why a “what it does” marketing message worked, because the functional benefits was all that was needed to sell the product.
The spur that really kicked the consumerism horse in the U.S. economy began in the 1950s, post WWII and the baby-boom. With more differentiated brands, products and thus decision fatigue for the standard consumer, people needed a better reason to purchase beyond a product’s benefits (“what you’ll feel”).
In the beginning of the 21st century, we’ve moved higher on the pyramid, towards personal identification. We want the brands we purchase to serve an additional purpose: improve our outward image, because the brands we buy reflect to others the values we care about.
Sounds a little like Maslow’s Hierarchy right? Well at the top is ‘self-actualization,’ or achieving one’s full potential, including creative activities. COVID-19 has forced us into a new-age renaissance: creativity, risk-taking, and drawing outside the lines is encouraged because industries and businesses are re-defining themselves and their playbooks.
A New Era
Today, the cultural and historical disruption of this decade is the global pandemic. With thousands of millennials and Gen Z-ers plugging in to create their own content (the appeal of online virality, connecting with people virtually, you get the gist), people are creating their own brands. Where, you may ask? YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitch just to name the big players.
More and more consumers are guided by the ‘people’ they follow, the influencers they watch, and the celebrities they care about. Kevin Kelly refers to these people as ‘true fans,’ a die-hard fan that will purchase anything you make.
Which of the following do you think more young teenage girls are going to spend their money on: Starbuck’s new holiday drink or Emma Chamberlain’s Chamberlain Coffee?
This difference in these marketing tactics is based upon a principle by Seth Godin called ‘permission marketing.’ Whereas interruptive marketing is outbound, mass-targeting, and traditional, permission marketing seeks to create value for those insiders. In today’s context, that would be social media.
YouTube is an excellent example for this: users voluntarily subscribe to creators, which means they’ll see their weekly videos more easily. But really, it’s inviting them to promote their ‘brand’ to them in a way that has made it almost too easy for YouTubers to start selling their own products (clothing merchandise, hot sauce, perfume, and even ice-cream).
Hence, my belief is that branding and marketing is heading in a direction where individual creators, personalities, influencers will garner more consumer attention than ever. In a study performed in 2019 with a pool of 1,000 children under the age of 16, YouTuber/vlogger was the #3 dream job for boys, after football player and police officer.
2020 and beyond: ‘Greenhouse branding’
So instead of following brands, people are creating their own. I think this is a significant expanding area of branding, and I’m going to coin it as ‘greenhouse branding.’ Large content and media platforms (YouTube, TikTok, Twitch) act as incubators for a diverse group of creators, which have brands of their own.
In an earlier article I wrote about Twitch’s brand positioning, I mentioned the following:
Twitch has another problem that I believe speaks to this new era of branding: balancing their own brand presence with the brand presence of the creators they host on their platform. They don’t want to overshadow their creators’ brand by having a platform brand that takes up too much real estate in a potential new user’s mind, nor do they want to disappear behind the unique brands of each of their creators.
2020 and beyond: Creation, “What community you can create”
Features → Benefits → Experience → Identification → Creation
In conclusion, as social media continues to grow exponentially, the number of self-established content creators will also explode. Companies will have to compete with a new disruption: the consumers themselves.
