The anti-filter bubble so to speak
Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2024 4:44 am
First, you figure out who people are and what they like. Then, you provide them with content and services that best fit them. Finally, you tune to get the fit just right. Your identity shapes your media. There's just one flaw in this logic: Media also shape identity.
Also read: Strong brands work! Build your brand in 8 steps
Who we are shapes the media we consume. And the media we consume in turn shapes who we are. An endless loop in which information comes to us in an increasingly personalized way. In which we are all little police forces, seeking confirmation of our own little piece of truth.
Less Big Stories
Chief Editor at Elsevier Arendo Joustra outlines the consequences in his presentation: there is much less talk of Grand Narratives these days than there used to be. The Catholic story, the socialist story, the liberal story, almost all of them have been replaced by hyper-personalized storytelling with micro-influencers in a leading role. Small stories, in other words. A lot of small stories.
None of this is necessarily good or bad. But in the meantime, many traditional institutions and opinion makers are seeing their authority rapidly diminish. A multitude of stories means that the collective value we attribute to each of the stories itself is becoming increasingly smaller.
It’s a classic recipe for a disinformation campaign, if you think about it: circulate lots of alternative facts to cast doubt on the credibility of the Big Story.
Arendo Joustra from Elsevier
Arendo Joustra from Elsevier
Universal experiences
How do you position yourself as a brand in a world where Big Stories matter less, or are perhaps even distrusted? Ultimately, it is Jenna Kleingeld of strategy agency Weyond who comes up with the answer: by connecting yourself as a brand with the few Big Stories that are left. Universal experiences with universal relevance.
Kleingeld gives the example of animal feed manufacturer de Heus, which supported the farmers' protest (#TrotsOpDeBoeren). But dormant (or less dormant) nationalistic feelings are now also being claimed by brands. See Heineken, which dusted off the quintessential Dutch 'Biertje!' with the Crate Chronicles campaign . Or KPN, which some time ago proclaimed itself 'The network of the Netherlands' .
The feeling of Dutchness, all Dutch people can relate to that. Right?
Jenna Kleingeld from Weyond
Jenna Kleingeld from Weyond
Just Big
Back to Big Tech. Isn’t it ironic that Amazon, Facebook and Google are choosing a mass event like the Super Bowl to get their message across? The absolute kings of personalization, italy telegram data hypertargeting and big data?
Maybe, but those brands have a very specific reason for doing so. And that reason has everything to do with universal experiences .
Take a look at the Fortune 500 list for the year 2000. It's the traditional corporates that ruled that year: General Motors, Wal-Mart, Exxon Mobile, Ford. The first tech company on the list is IBM, at number 6.
How different the world looks twenty years later . We see Apple in 3rd place. Amazon in 5th place. Alphabet (the parent company of Google and YouTube) in 14th place. Big Tech is not just Big Tech anymore. It is simply Big.
And Big, as we have seen, is almost automatically distrusted. While Facebook turned everyone into a publisher a few years ago, the company is now disrupting the democratic process on a large scale. While Google unlocked all the information on earth, in 2020 Sergei and Larry listen to your private conversations like ordinary eavesdroppers. And in the meantime, Amazon is silencing employees who speak out against their employer's climate policy .
Also read: Strong brands work! Build your brand in 8 steps
Who we are shapes the media we consume. And the media we consume in turn shapes who we are. An endless loop in which information comes to us in an increasingly personalized way. In which we are all little police forces, seeking confirmation of our own little piece of truth.
Less Big Stories
Chief Editor at Elsevier Arendo Joustra outlines the consequences in his presentation: there is much less talk of Grand Narratives these days than there used to be. The Catholic story, the socialist story, the liberal story, almost all of them have been replaced by hyper-personalized storytelling with micro-influencers in a leading role. Small stories, in other words. A lot of small stories.
None of this is necessarily good or bad. But in the meantime, many traditional institutions and opinion makers are seeing their authority rapidly diminish. A multitude of stories means that the collective value we attribute to each of the stories itself is becoming increasingly smaller.
It’s a classic recipe for a disinformation campaign, if you think about it: circulate lots of alternative facts to cast doubt on the credibility of the Big Story.
Arendo Joustra from Elsevier
Arendo Joustra from Elsevier
Universal experiences
How do you position yourself as a brand in a world where Big Stories matter less, or are perhaps even distrusted? Ultimately, it is Jenna Kleingeld of strategy agency Weyond who comes up with the answer: by connecting yourself as a brand with the few Big Stories that are left. Universal experiences with universal relevance.
Kleingeld gives the example of animal feed manufacturer de Heus, which supported the farmers' protest (#TrotsOpDeBoeren). But dormant (or less dormant) nationalistic feelings are now also being claimed by brands. See Heineken, which dusted off the quintessential Dutch 'Biertje!' with the Crate Chronicles campaign . Or KPN, which some time ago proclaimed itself 'The network of the Netherlands' .
The feeling of Dutchness, all Dutch people can relate to that. Right?
Jenna Kleingeld from Weyond
Jenna Kleingeld from Weyond
Just Big
Back to Big Tech. Isn’t it ironic that Amazon, Facebook and Google are choosing a mass event like the Super Bowl to get their message across? The absolute kings of personalization, italy telegram data hypertargeting and big data?
Maybe, but those brands have a very specific reason for doing so. And that reason has everything to do with universal experiences .
Take a look at the Fortune 500 list for the year 2000. It's the traditional corporates that ruled that year: General Motors, Wal-Mart, Exxon Mobile, Ford. The first tech company on the list is IBM, at number 6.
How different the world looks twenty years later . We see Apple in 3rd place. Amazon in 5th place. Alphabet (the parent company of Google and YouTube) in 14th place. Big Tech is not just Big Tech anymore. It is simply Big.
And Big, as we have seen, is almost automatically distrusted. While Facebook turned everyone into a publisher a few years ago, the company is now disrupting the democratic process on a large scale. While Google unlocked all the information on earth, in 2020 Sergei and Larry listen to your private conversations like ordinary eavesdroppers. And in the meantime, Amazon is silencing employees who speak out against their employer's climate policy .